INORGANIC FERTILIZERS (MINERAL FERTILIZER)

Naturally occurring inorganic fertilizers include Chilean sodium nitrate, mined rock
phosphate, and limestone (to raise pH and a calcium source).

Macronutrients and micronutrients

Fertilizers can be divided into macronutrients and micronutrients based on their

concentrations in plant dry matter. There are six macronutrients: nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium, often termed "primary macronutrients" because their
availability is usually managed with NPK fertilizers, and the "secondary
macronutrients" — calcium, magnesium, and sulfur — which are required in roughly
similar quantities but whose availability is often managed as part of liming and
manuring practices rather than fertilizers[citation needed].

The macronutrients are consumed in larger quantities and normally present as a

whole number or tenths of percentages in plant tissues (on a dry matter weight
basis)[citation needed]. There are many micronutrients, required in concentrations
ranging from 5 to 100 parts per million (ppm) by mass[citation needed]. Plant
micronutrients include iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), boron (B), copper (Cu),
molybdenum (Mo), nickel (Ni), chlorine (Cl), and zinc (Zn).

Macronutrient fertilizers

Synthesized materials are also called artificial, and may be described as straight,
where the product predominantly contains the three primary ingredients of nitrogen
(N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K), (known as N-P-K fertilizers or compound
fertilizers when elements are mixed intentionally).

Reporting of N-P-K

Such fertilizers are named according to the content of these three elements. For
example, if nitrogen is the main element, the fertilizer is often described as a
nitrogen fertilizer.

Regardless of the name, however, they are labeled according to the relative
amounts of each of these three elements, by weight (i.e, mass fraction). The percent
of nitrogen is reported directly. However, phosphorus is reported as the mass
fraction of phosphorus pentoxide (P2O5), the anhydride of phosphoric acid, and
potassium is reported as the mass fraction of potassium oxide (K2O), which is the
anhydride of potassium hydroxide.

Fertilizer composition is expressed in this fashion for historical reasons in the way it
was analyzed (conversion to ash for P and K mass fractions); this practice dates
back to Justus von Liebig.
Mass fraction conversion to elemental values

Since the N-P-K reporting basis just described does not give the actual fraction of
the respective elements, some packaging also reports the elemental mass fractions.
The UK fertilizer-labelling regulations [10] allow for additionally reporting the
elemental mass fractions of phosphorous and potassium, rather than phosphoric
acid and potassium hydroxide, but these must be listed in parentheses after the
standard values. The regulations specify the factors for converting from the P2O5
and K2O values to the respective P and K elemental values as follows:

In phosphorous pentoxide, the element phosphorous constitutes 43.6% of the total

mass of the compound. Thus, the official UK mass fraction (percentage) of
elemental phosphorus is 43.6%. [P] = 0.436 x [P2O5]

Likewise, the mass fraction (percentage) of elemental potassium is 83%. [K] = 0.83
x [K2O]

Thus an 18−51−20 fertilizer contains, by weight, 18% elemental nitrogen (N), 22%
elemental phosphorus (P), and 16% elemental potassium (K).

(Note: The remaining 11% [100 - (18 + 51 + 20)] is known as ballast or filler and may
or may not be valuable to the plants, depending on what is used as filler.)

Sodium nitrate

Sodium nitrate is the chemical compound with the formula NaNO3. This salt, also
known as "Chile saltpeter" or "Peru saltpeter" (to distinguish it from ordinary
saltpeter, potassium nitrate), is a white solid which is very soluble in water. The
mineral form is also known as nitratine or soda niter.

Sodium nitrate is used as an ingredient in fertilizers, pyrotechnics, as a food

preservative, and as a solid rocket propellant, as well as in glass and pottery
enamels; the compound has been mined extensively for those purposes.

The mining of South American saltpeter was such a profitable business that Chile
fought against the allies Peru and Bolivia and took over the richest deposits in the
War of the Pacific. The world's largest natural deposits of caliche ore were in the
Atacama desert of Chile, and many deposits were mined for over a century, until the
1940s, when its value declined dramatically in the first decades of the twentieth
century.

Chile still has the largest reserves of caliche, with active mines in such locations as
Pedro de Valdivia, Maria Elena and Pampa Blanca. Sodium nitrate, potassium
nitrate, sodium sulfate and iodine are all obtained by the processing of caliche. The
former Chilean saltpeter mining communities of Humberstone and Santa Laura were
declared Unesco World Heritage sites in 2005.
Sodium nitrate is also synthesized industrially by neutralizing nitric acid with soda
ash.

Rock phosphate

Rock phosphate is a general term for rock that contains a high concentration of
phosphate minerals, which commonly belong to the apatite group. Phosphate rock
minerals are the only significant global resources of phosphorus. Phosphorus is an
essential element for plant and animal nutrition. Mined rock phosphate is primarily
used in the production of phosphate fertilisers for agriculture. Phosphorus from rock
phosphate is also used in animal feed supplements, food preservatives, anti-
corrosion agents, cosmetics, fungicides, ceramics, water treatment and metallurgy.

In the world, the United States is the leading importer of phosphate rock, but the
leading producer and exporter of phosphate fertilizers, accounting for about 37% of
world P2O5 exports. The world’s total economic demonstrated resource of rock
phosphate is 18 Gt, which occurs principally as sedimentary marine phosphorites.