Ammonia — Turning Air into Fertilizer
Jul 27, 2026 · 17 min · 10 segments
How a laboratory experiment became one of the world’s most important industrial processes.
- Speakers
Jagdeep SinghHost
Jul 27, 2026 · 17 min · 10 segments
How a laboratory experiment became one of the world’s most important industrial processes.
Jagdeep SinghHost
It is one of the basic building blocks of life, used to make proteins, DNA and chlorophyll.
Nitrogen fills nearly 80% of the air we breathe, but plants cannot use it directly.
This is the story of how ammonia was first made a few drops at a time in a laboratory and then transformed into a process that runs continuously day and night producing it by the ton.
For centuries, farmers replenished nitrogen in the soil using manure, compost and imported bird droppings called guano.
But by the late 19th century, these natural sources could no longer keep pace with a rapidly growing population.
It is one of the basic building blocks of life, used to make proteins, DNA and chlorophyll.
Nitrogen fills nearly 80% of the air we breathe, but plants cannot use it directly.
This is the story of how ammonia was first made a few drops at a time in a laboratory and then transformed into a process that runs continuously day and night producing it by the ton.
For centuries, farmers replenished nitrogen in the soil using manure, compost and imported bird droppings called guano.
But by the late 19th century, these natural sources could no longer keep pace with a rapidly growing population.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
