Ammonia: an industrial giant

  Ammonia is manufactured on a huge scale, the major producers being China, the US, India and Russia. The graph below shows the trends for world and US production of NH₃ between 1980 and 2000.

   Agriculture demands vast quantities of fertilizers to supplement soil nutrients; this is critical when the same land is used year after year for crop production. Essential nutrients are N, P, K (the three required in largest amounts), Ca, Mg and S plus trace elements. In 2002, in the US, direct use and its conversion into other nitrogenous fertilizers accounted for ≈ 88% of all NH₃ produced. In addition to NH₃ itself, the nitrogen-rich compound CO(NH₂)₂ (urea) is of prime importance, along with [NH₄][NO₃] and [NH₄]₂[HPO₄] (which has the benefit of supplying both N and P nutrients); [NH₄]₂[SO₄] accounts for a smaller portion of the market. The remaining 12% of NH₃ produced was used in the synthetic fibre industry (e.g. nylon-6, nylon-6,6 and rayon).