Along the way, the research team discovered a novel
nitrogen fixation process.
Not exact matches
Fixation processes free up
nitrogen atoms from their diatomic form to be used in other ways, but
nitrogen does not easily react with other chemicals to form new compounds.
The most common method of industrial
nitrogen fixation is the Harber - Bosch
process, which requires extremely harsh conditions, 200 atm of pressure and 400 °C of temperature.
Applications considered in the
process included bio-mining;
nitrogen fixation by engineered crops; gene drive propagation in populations of invasive species; and engineered seeds and plants destined for distribution to the public.
The
process is called
nitrogen fixation, and it occurs in microorganisms on the roots of plants.
Thus, in addition to the so - called «Haber - Bosch
process of
nitrogen fixation,» nitrogenase also stimulates a reaction corresponding to the «Fischer - Tropsch synthesis of hydrocarbons,» which can be used on a large scale to synthesize fuels, for instance from industrial waste gases..
Some, however, plow through the night, converting
nitrogen from the air into usable nutrients — a
process known as
nitrogen fixation.
This anthropogenic addition of
nitrogen has reached a magnitude comparable to about half of global ocean
nitrogen fixation (the natural
process by which atmospheric
nitrogen gas becomes a useful nutrient for organisms).
«Fifty - four percent of that is fertilizer — the Haber - Bosch
process; 11 percent is atmospheric deposition — the plus side of pollution; 18 percent is in situ
fixation,» or
nitrogen - fixing cover crops, like legumes, Sanchez said.
Key climate - relevant biogeochemical
processes such as calcification, primary production and
nitrogen fixation are investigated using a large array of techniques, ranging from molecular tools to physiological and ecological approaches.
The overall
process is called
nitrogen fixation.
«More than 60 genes involved in various
processes of heterocyst formation and
nitrogen fixation were assigned to the chromosome based on their similarity to the reported genes,» Kaneko's team writes in Genome Research.
The main
nitrogen compartment is atmospheric N2 (Supplementary Table 1), which is almost inert and can only be transformed into bioavailable forms (e.g., NH3) via highly energetic
processes (e.g., lightning, the Haber — Bosch
process, or biological
fixation of N; 30).