Physicist Stephan Reuter of Polytechnique Montréal made the farms familiar with Haber-Bosch process. That process includes the production of ammonia fertilizers through Nitrogen and Hydrogen.
Haber-Bosch progress revolutionized agriculture by producing mass fertilizers. The drawback of this process is the emission of carbon dioxide.
Reuter believes that our agricultural department can be improved even further by the production of renewable fertilizers.
This vision can come to life using plasma. According to astrophysicists, the most of matter seen on the earth is in a state of plasma. It has numerous applications in almost every field of science. For instance, exposure to plasma can kill pathogenic bacteria. It can treat wounds and other skin conditions, and much more.
The recent studies on plasma aim to improve food production. One of the approaches in this regard is to use plasma-treated water to fertilize and irrigate the soil.
Earlier in the 2000s, the cost-effective way of generating cold plasma through electrons was introduced by scientists. Ever since then, there has been a continuous study to test plasma on plants.
Dutch scientists have developed reactors that use plasma from air to generate fertilizers. This method is believed to resolve the issue of the non-availability of fertilizers in areas where farmers cannot get ammonia.