Nitrogen

By Quinn Shapiro
Terms
Nitrogen Fixation: This is when nitrogen gas (N2) gets turned into ammonia.

Nitrification: This is when ammonia gets turned into nitrites or when the nitrites turn into nitrates.

Denitrification: This is when nitrates turn back into N2.

Ammonification: This is the same thing as nitrogen fixation.

Assimilation: This is when plants take in nitrates.

Eutrophication: This is when a body of water gets too much nutrients.

The Nitrogen Cycle
1. Atmospheric Nitrogen goes into the ground where nitrogen fixing bacteria
turn the nitrogen gas into ammonia. Decomposers can also convert organic
nitrogen into ammonia. This is called ammonification.
2. Next, nitrification occurs when nitrifying bacteria make the ammonia into
nitrates and the nitrites into nitrates.
3. The nitrates then are assimilated by plants, which animals then eat. Other
nitrates are transformed back into nitrogen gas by denitrifying bacteria, which
is called denitrification.
What Humans Normally Do
Normally, we are able to get this nutrient to crops using fertilizer. We
use the Haber-Bosch process which uses immense heat and pressure
to turn nitrogen gas into ammonia, which can alone be used as
fertilizer. Ammonia can also be converted into nitric acid which is also
used as fertilizer.

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How the Haber-Bosch Process Affects The Environment

Due to the increase in population, we rely on the Haber-Bosch process to feed

billions of people. This causes us to release almost 100 million extra tons of fixed
nitrogen. Because of this, the nitrogen cycle is starting to become extremely
unbalanced. This can cause things like acid rain, eutrophication, and less
biodiversity. Diseases and pests in plants are also starting to become more
common, which means that maintaining sufficient crop yields might start to
become increasingly difficult.

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My Solution: Compost
I believe that compost will be the most effective and environmentally friendly way
to get nitrogen into our plants. We can use any extra organic material that we have
and use it as compost. We could also plant legumes, which contain nitrogen fixing
bacteria. Both the compost and legumes combined would allow plants to have a
sufficient amount of nitrogen.

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Sources
1. How fertilizer is made. How products are made,
http://www.madehow.com/Volume-3/Fertilizer.html
2. The Haber Process Nitrogen Fertilizer From the Air. The compost
gardener.com, https://www.the-compost-gardener.com/haber-process.html
3. Global Nitrogen: Cycling out of Control. PubMed Central,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247398/
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0KwZdE9YAY&t=177s