C6: Fertilisers

Fertilisers increase crop yield, so the more fertilisers we make, the more crops we can grow, therefore the more people we can feed. This is very important as population is growing rapidly and it would be almost impossible to feed the whole population on naturally grown crops.

Using too many fertilisers risks polluting our water supplies and causing Eutrophication.

This is when a fertiliser is put on fields and some of it runs off and ends up in rivers and streams. The level of nitrates and phosphates in the river water increases. Algae and weeds living in the river use the nutrients to multiply rapidly. The algae form an algal bloom (a carpet of algae that covers the surface of the river). This blocks off the light to the river below. Therefore plants cannot Photosynthesise, so they have no food and they die. Aerobic bacteria feed on the dead plants and start to multiply. As the bacteria multiply, they use up all the oxygen in the water. As a result pretty much everything dies. 

In Lab production the process moves one step at a time and once the whole process has been completed then it begins again from the beginning.

In bulk production the process is at a continuous flow as it is more economically viable.

Lab process produce fertilisers in batches - they produce small amounts and are labour intensive. In industry, production is continous - it goes on all the time and produces much larger quantities and requires fewer workers to achieve the same level of production as lab processes.

Continous flow production is used on bulk/ industrial scale. It invloves all the stages being completed in a circuit so the process continues in a loop. compared with lab production wich is done step by step and takes a greater length of time to complete. It is also less economically viable than industrial production.