Improvements in and relating to the Manufacture of Artificial Manures.
Year: 1899

page_text: Date of Application, 3rd Mar., 1899-Accepted, 15th July, 1899
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in and relating to the Manufacture of Artificial
Manures.
I, ALBERT WENCK, of 30, Kaiserstrasse, Magdeburg, German Empire, Merchant,
do hereby declare the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is
to be performed, to be particularly described and ascertained in and by the fol-
lowing statement:
This invention relates to the manufacture of artificial manures from waste
products by bacterial action and also to the isolation and cultivation of nitrifying
bacteria for said purpose.
Pasteur was the first to demonstrate by bacterial researches that certain bacteria
in the soil split up complicated nitrogen compounds and simple ammonia coni-
pounds in such manner as to transform them into nitrites and nitrates, which
nitrogen compounds are especially suitable for the process of plant nutrition as
they are readily assimilable by plant life. Other investigators such as Widno-
gradsky, Schlösing and Müntz have also worked in this direction and confirmed
Pasteur's researches. Widnogradsky has further shown that the nitrifying bacteria
possess instead of chlorophyll so called chromophyll by means of which they are
able to supply their need for carbon not only from organic carbon compounds
but also from inorganic carbonates. They however require light for the main-
tenance of the assimilation. Since, then, the activity of the nitrifying bacteria
represents a process of decomposition by oxidation as opposed to the putrefying
process of the reducing bacteria of putrefaction, which can only vegetate anaero-
bically, it follows that the rational manuring of plant life must rest to a certain
extent upon a process of decomposition by oxidation, because it is clear that the
nitrifying bacteria are able to act with far greater intensity for the chemical-
physiological process of plant nutrition than the reducing bacteria or putrefac-
tion bacteria. These latter even injure the most important supply of nutrient to
the plant (as proved by researches of Stutzer and Burri) because they reduce the
nitrogen compounds to elementary nitrogen, which is useless and lost to the
plant. It is evident, and has also been proved by research, that a great portion
of the expensive artificial manures which are added to the soil passes off into the
air by reason of the process just referred to and does no good to the plant at all.
Unfortunately no practical method has hitherto existed whereby these drawbacks
could be obviated nor has the principle of the nitrifying activity of bacteria been
rendered available in practical agriculture, because investigations conducted in
this direction have not until now resulted in any practical success worthy of
mention.
The inventor of the present method can claim to have systematically deter-
mined the method of nitrification to such an extent that the possibility in any
case of loss of nitrogen by reduction appears to be excluded in artificial manur-
ing and that many hitherto disregarded nitrogen containing waste products may
be rendered available for rational utilization. The inventor in particular has in
view the utilization of that kind of waste industrial products which, as we are
taught by experience and research, become so readily reduced and deprived of,

page_text: their value when used as manure, such for example as town sewage and the
residue obtained in the crystallization of sugar and known as molasses wash."
++
The object of the present process is to so regulate the nitrifying process in the
soil by means of the improved manures, that the formation of nitrates can take
place and is encouraged in the soil, and loss of nitrogen by reduction is avoided.
The value and the action of the manure powders produced according to the
present invention depend less upon their content of easily absorbable nourishing
substances for plant life than in the use of specific nitrifying soil bacteria in the
lasting condition of hardy spores, (such condition being only recently known).
The cultivation of the specific microbes is in part similar to the method adopted
by Widnogradsky. In the present invention, however, the bacteria to be pro-
duced are always cultivated in the particular waste product from which the
manure is to be manufactured. Artificial inorganic nourishing soils are not
suitable, contrary to Widnogradsky's method.
The present invention, which is based upon the scientific principles above
indicated and the methods of culture made known by Koch, consists in substance
of the following operations, which are described as applied to molasses wash and
will serve to illustrate the invention in its general application.
I take a solution of the particular waste product to be employed, for instance
molasses wash, said solution having a nitrogen content of say about 3%. This solu-
tion may be prepared from molasses wash in the following manner. The molasses
are first dissolved in pure water to obtain about the concentration of bouillon
(beef extract) a small quantity of meat pulp or the like being added if necessary
and care being taken that the alkalescence shall amount to about 2% soda, while
the nitrogen content can be brought to about 3%, by dilution or by the addition
of sulphate of ammonia as the case may be. The solution thus prepared is placed
in a long series of culture glasses provided with pads of wadding, say about 200 cc.
of solution in each glass.
In this solution is placed a small quantity of earth mould say gr. in each
glass and then several small pieces of carbonate of lime say 2.gr. to each glass.
The glasses so prepared are left in a weak light from 4 to 6 weeks and it is then
ascertained by comparative titrations in which glass the most nitrates have formed
during this time. This culture fluid is utilized as the mother substance for larger
quantities of nitrifying culture. For this purpose a solution is prepared of
similar constitution to the first nitrogen fluid, but on the large scale say about
10-20 times the first solution and to this second solution the most virulent of the
germs obtained as above described are added.(a suitable quantity being a few cem.
in the form of a solution), together with say 1% lime and also a solution of
water glass say % water glass, while the addition of earth mould is omitted.
These united larger cultures are allowed to propagate in a warm place for several
days, and after about 8 days the whole is mixed with sufficient powdered lime,
sand or the like to form a granular pulp which will dry easily and allowed to
dry at a moderate warmth, not over 38° C. It will be understood that I may use
both sand and lime & that the proportions of same may vary. The hardy spores
of the virulent nitrifying bacteria are now present in the resulting powder in
great number, and it is necessary to bring the waste product to be treated-(in
the present example molasses wash)-into the form of a dry powder, because the
spores of the nitrifying bacteria would germinate too soon in a moist body.
They will be able to germinate in the moist soil when the manure is spread
thereon. It is further to be noted in the transformation of the nitrogen waste
products into suitable dried forms, that the forms of bacteria produced can only
be maintained permanently active in their condition as spores in substances
having an alkaline reaction. It is therefore advisable to add caustic lime or soda,
potash, ash or the like in the preparation, but in particular caustic lime, to the
waste product, e.g., molasses wash reduced to dry powder, until an alkaline mix-
ture of a pulverulent nature is produced. The dry nitrifying bacteria powder
produced as above described is then added to this product in small proportions

page_text: say 1 of bacteria powder to 100,000 molasses wash powder and the manure is then
ready for transport and use. The alkalisation has also the object of giving to the
bacteria on the soil, after the powdered manure has been spread thereon, the
proper conditions of life. These bacteria are at once enabled by the alkaline
earth salts-present or resulting (by CO₂) and by the nitrogen or the compounds
of ammonia simultaneously present, to which they immediately attach themselves
to effect the desired transformation of the nitrogen groups into nitrates, during
which operation certain physical conditions of existence, such as moisture, light
already mentioned above, &c. must be presumed to exist. Further it has been
proved by comparative researches that manures treated in accordance with this
method are in no way exposed to the danger of falling a prey to reduction pro-
cesses, because the reduction bacteria present in the soil completely succumb to
the activity of the bacteria cultivated and prepared in the manner herein
described. No loss by formation of elementary nitrogen can therefore occur
according to the present method and the whole of the nitrogen substance present
must be transformed into the readily assimilable nitrate form. The manures pro-
duced in accordance with the present invention do not differ substantially in out-
ward appearance from other known manures.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said
invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what
I claim is-
1. Manufacture of manures from waste products containing nitrogen by trans-
forming substances containing organic nitrogen-or ammonia-compounds by
means of suitable inorganic additions and by the addition of nitrifying bacteria
to a manure powder having an alkaline reaction, with the object of preventing
loss of nitrogen and better turning to account of the waste products.
2. In and for the manufacture claimed by the preceding claim, the employ-
ment of the waste product to be impregnated as a nutrient bed for the cultiva-
tion of the said nitrifying bacteria to be utilized.
Dated this 3rd day of March 1899.
J. C. MEWBURN & ELLIS,
55 and 56, Chancery Lane, London, Chartered Patent Agents.