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Botany · Ch 12 — Mineral Nutrition

Non-Biological Nitrogen Fixation

12.7.1

Non-Biological Nitrogen Fixation

Nitrogen can be fixed by purely physical or industrial means, without any organism's involvement. In industry, atmospheric nitrogen is fixed by chemical processes under controlled conditions to manufacture nitrogen fertilizers. In nature, the enormous electrical energy of a lightning discharge is enough to break the N2 triple bond directly, fixing a small but conti …