Journal of Agricultural Science and Food Research
Open Access

Abstract

Alternatives for the production of potassium fertilisers in argentina

Valdez Silvana K , Abregu Blanca A, Orce Agustina, Kwok Leung H

The use of potassium fertilizers on crops brings with good yields of crops and maximum profitability for farmers.
Currently in Argentina, the level of production of potash fertilizers does not cover the needs of the sector making it
necessary to import to meet demand. On the other hand, the brines of the Puna, which are exploited to produce
lithium carbonate, contain potassium chloride in appreciable concentrations and could be an alternative resource to
obtain potassium fertilizer. The aim of this paper is to analyse the possibilities of obtaining potassium fertilizers in
the NOA, using both, natural brines and process effluents of obtaining lithium carbonate. Industrially, KCl is
obtained by froth flotation and fractionated crystallization. Nowadays, salting-out is not applied industrially to obtain
KCl. Through salting-out, KCl crystallization is achieved by adding an organic solvent that modifies KCl solubility. In
this work, the three techniques mentioned are compared, focusing on performance, recovery and purity of the
crystals obtained. The solids obtained by flotation have purity between 85-90% while by fractionated crystallization
the purity of the solids is higher than 95% as in the crystals obtained by salting-out. These results show that the KCl
obtained can be used as a fertilizer since it meets the specifications for use as such
Keywords: Potassium; Fertilizers; Brines; Residues

Published Date: 2020-03-09; Received Date: 2020-02-13