“We need nitrogen to survive, but we can’t take it in from the air,” says Seefeldt, professor and head of USU’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. “We get nitrogen from the protein in our food.”
Little over a century ago, the Haber-Bosch process revolutionized how atmospheric nitrogen could be converted to a form to allow for industrial-scale production of fertilizer. The discovery led to a huge increase in global food production and a massive population boom. Still, certain areas of the globe, including Sub-Saharan Africa, lack the infrastructure to allow import and distribution of fertilizer, much less the capacity to produce the nutrient-essential product close to home.