Potash

Potash

Subject – Agriculture

Context – EID Parry (India) Ltd., one of the largest sugar manufacturers in the South, has undertaken a pilot study to establish the extraction of potash from ash produced in distilleries.

Concept –

• Potash includes various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.
• The name derives from pot ash, which refers to plant ashes or wood ash soaked in water in a pot, which was the primary means of manufacturing the product before the Industrial Era.
• Potash is produced worldwide in amounts exceeding 90 million tonnes (40 million tonnes K₂O equivalent) per year, mostly for use in fertilizer.
• Potassium was first derived in 1807 by electrolysis of caustic potash (potassium hydroxide).
• Most of the world’s potash comes from Canada, with the largest deposits located in Saskatchewan and New Brunswick. Four countries (Canada, Belarus, Russia and China) accounted for 80% of the world’s potash production in 2019.
• Today, potash comes from either underground or solution mining.
• In India, few deposits of potash mineral are reported from Sidhi district of Madhya Pradesh, Sonbhadra district of Uttar Pradesh, Kaimur district of Bihar and Sawai Madhopur and Karauli districts of Rajasthan.
  • It is in the form of Glauconitic(a potassium bearing green mica) sandstone.
• Potassium is an important element of the human diet as it is essential for growth and the maintenance of tissues, muscles and organs, as well as the electrical activity of the heart.