Van Iperen International and Pure Green Agriculture started operations of the world’s first factory, located in the Netherlands, to produce nitrates from manure. It aims to dramatically reduce nitrogen while producing sustainable and organic liquid nitrate fertilizers.
Currently, governments and enterprises are taking dramatic steps to solve the nitrogen crisis. Excess nitrogen in the atmosphere produces toxic pollutants such as ammonia, which affect health, alter the flora, soils, and waterways. Together, Pure Green Agriculture and Van Iperen International aim to contribute to solving the nitrogen crisis through sustainable technology and products that directly benefit farmers, support responsible agricultural growth and support the biogas industry. Pure Green’s Ammonium Recovery Technology (ART) and Ammonium Inversion Reactor (AIR) capture nitrogen in the form of ammonia from manure and agricultural waste streams and transform it into sustainable fertilizers under the GreenSwitch label.
“The global emissions crisis requires solutions that support the planet while allowing farmers to thrive. We aim to connect the GreenSwitch process with larger biogas operators and other manure processing industries where we can remove 1000 to 5000 tons of nitrogen per year and reduce 180 to 900 tons emissions of nitrogen. And on top we avoid the emission of 11,000 to 55,000 tons of CO2”, said Phil van Wakeren, CEO of Pure Green. Further formulation yields sustainable and organic liquid nitrate fertilizers well-suited for fertigation. The end-to-end industrial-scale process is called GreenSwitch. As the producer of Specialty Fertilizers and Biostimulants, the Dutch company Van Iperen International is responsible for the industrialization of the GreenSwitch process and the commercialization of the final products.
Conventional horticulture uses large quantities of synthetically derived nitrate fertilizers, essential to reach a good yield of high quality. Unfortunately, conventional production methods have a large Carbon Footprint. “GreenSwitch changes the paradigm for farmers and the fertilizer industry by delivering desirable nitrate products with a negligible carbon footprint”, says Erik van den Bergh, Managing Director of Van Iperen International. GreenSwitch nitrate fertilizers are also certified for Organic Farming in different areas around the world and will allow Organic Farmers to use a readily available nitrogen fertilizer. For that reason, on June 1st the Dutch main horticultural event, Horticontact, awarded GreenSwitch as the Innovation of the year for the high-tech greenhouse sector.
Van IperenPure Green Agriculture
www.puregreenagriculture.com