THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SALITRE (SODIUM NITRATE) INDUSTRY
Jaime Wisniak, Ingrid Garcés · Indian Journal of Chemical Technology · 2001
The nitrate fields in Chile are exceptional for their mineral content and unknown origin and serve as an excellent example how a chemical technology can arise to create a very large and almost exclusive market, to be sent then almost into oblivion by competing technologies. The income from sodium nitrate export provided for many years almost 50% of the income of the Chilean government and a large part of the world needs for fertilizers. Development of the Haber-Bosch process for ammonia synthesis resulted in the crash of the dream and a serious economic crisis for Chile.