Potash
Potash was used as fertilizer, as a component of cattle waste, centuries before potassium was discovered.
Its importance in the mechanism of plant growth was noted about 100 years ago, but the understanding of part of its biological functions is recent.
The most important potassium mineral is KCl , also called potash.
Potash as fertilizer must contain at least 96% KCl.
K concentration is expressed as %K2O in the fertilizer industry.
The large potash producers are: Canada, Russia and its satellites, Germany, Israel and Jordan.
The Dead Sea
The Dead sea has shrunk in length and volume in the past decade. As a result, the salts concentration are close to saturation.
The Dead Sea production process
Dead sea brine is pumped from the north part of the Dead sea to the first NaCl pond.
Two large solar ponds, in series (100 km2 total area) serve to evaporate water and settle NaCl. The saturated solution is moved by gravity to one of the 6 carnallite ponds in which a mixture of carnallite and NaCl settles. Slow moving motorized rafts are used to harvest the solids and pump a suspension of the crystals in its mother liquor to the processing plant.
The mother liquor is drained and the crystal mixture is sieved. The finer fraction is transported to the cold crystallization plant and the coarse fraction is transported to the hot crystallization plant. Additional crystallization is used to produce high purity KCl.
The waste brine from the plants is pumped back to the Dead Sea. Part of the effluent from the hot crystallization process is used as the raw material for the bromine plant and for the periclase plant. Part of the potash goes to an agglomeration plant to produce larger pellets.
The final products are transferred by conveyor to the railroad terminal on Rotem plain.