Translations:Benutzer:Arian/Klett-Mini-Test/1054/en

Nitrogen (N), constituting 79% of the atmosphere, is the true bearer of the air element. It streams around the green foliage of the plant as it strives upward into the atmosphere, without, however, taking any direct part in its growth processes. As a substance of the air, it is, like oxygen, bound to itself (N₂) and is for this reason nearly reaction-dead. It enters the denser states of water and earth by natural means in two ways only: 1. through the energy discharges of lightning, at approximately 6 kg/ha/year, and 2. by biological means through nitrogen fixation by plant organisms capable of this, in particular the species-rich family of the legumes. To break through this barrier of the natural nitrogen input — which sets its own measure — by means of large-scale industrial processes was the declared aim from the end of the nineteenth century onward. The breakthrough came with the synthesis of ammonia by the Haber-Bosch process. Under high energy expenditure, atmospheric nitrogen is converted in aqueous solution into the hydrogen compound ammonia (NH₃). Through further condensation there arise the solid compounds with oxygen — the nitrate salts — and with hydrogen — the ammonium salts — both of which likewise pass readily into solution, the former more quickly, the latter more slowly. Both compounds are in aqueous solution highly reactive, and the nitrate compounds in solid salt form are highly explosive. Through the synthesis process, any desired quantity of nitrogen salts can be produced at any location on earth, independently of the biological rhythms of day or year. Beyond their civil or military usefulness as explosives, they have, in the course of the twentieth century, unleashed a global revolution in plant production. They constitute the productive capital for agricultural mass production and are, in conjunction with the deployment of herbicides and pesticides, the cause of the development toward agrarian industrialism.