Zim Now Writer
Verify Engineering board chairperson, Edgar Kamusoko, has announced that the company is preparing to use locally available coal to develop ammonia-based fertilisers as the country upgrades agricultural productivity.
The innovation is expected to help by producing a significant amount of top-dressing fertiliser for farmers and satisfying the country’s fertiliser demand.
“We are going to employ a gasification process for us to come up with ammonium-based fertilisers. The processing technologies and designs are already in place,” Kamusoko said.
The Southern African country has a high demand for fertiliser but local production can only meet 10% of it.
The remaining 90% needs to be imported, which is a problem for farmers in a country that faces foreign currency shortages and a wildly fluctuating exchange rate.
Verify Engineering is a significant producer of acetylene, medical oxygen, industrial gases, and nitrogen gases and supplies customers in the healthcare, petrochemical refining, manufacturing, beverages, food, fibre-optics, steel manufacturing, chemicals and water treatment industries.
The firm was established in April 2005 with the support of the Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology Development Ministry and was launched as a strategic business unit in 2021.
According to the Zimbabwe Fertiliser Manufacturers Association, the country’s fertiliser industry requires about US$135 million annually to operate at 60% capacity or more, to meet current demand.
Coal is fossilised vegetation, containing nutrients that are essentially the same as in plants, only more concentrated and locked in.
Coal is also high in carbon, a source of energy for microorganisms that permanently enrich soil nutrition, including depleted, damaged, underused and unused soils.
The nutrients in coal must be processed and activated in order for plants to absorb them as fertiliser. Coal-to-fertiliser technology is also referred to as nutrient activation technology.
Some countries with abundant coal resources, like South Africa and China, already utilise gasification methods to manufacture fertilisers.
Rutendo MazhinduZim Now ReporterThe much-anticipated Mbudzi Interchange project, a significant infrastructure development aimed at easing traffic congestion in Harare, is nearing completion. As of n..
ZimbabweZIFA Congress members snubbed his freebies and now he attacks his rivalsOscar J JekeZim Now WriterTemba Mliswa has come out to move for the elimination of all viable rivals in the Zimbabwe Football ..
ZimbabwePhilemon JambayaZim Now EditorIn a bid to recover outstanding debts, the Bulawayo City Council has taken the drastic measure of cutting off water supplies to 59 schools in the city. This move has sp..
Zimbabwe
Leave Comments