Because of its high nitrogen content, ammonium nitrate is commonly used as a fertilizer. Nitrogen is a nutrient for plants and aids their essential growth and metabolic processes, increasing plant yield in the process. Nitrogen also helps in a plant's ability to photosynthesize.
While many varieties of fertilizer can be expensive for farmers to use regularly, ammonium nitrate, commonly sold in the form of pellets, provides a cheap yet effective alternative. However, in addition to being used in fertilizers, ammonium nitrate is also very reactant in heat and has application in explosives when paired with substances such as TNT. This fuel is called ANFO, or ammonium nitrate fuel oil.
Ammonium nitrate
Ammonium nitrate, (NH4NO3), a salt of ammonia and nitric acid, used widely in fertilizers and explosives. The commercial grade contains about 33.5 percent nitrogen, all of which is in forms utilizable by plants; it is the most common nitrogenous component of artificial fertilizers. Ammonium nitrate also is employed to modify the detonation rate of other explosives, such as nitroglycerin in the so-called ammonia dynamites, or as an oxidizing agent in the ammonals, which are mixtures of ammonium nitrate and powdered aluminum.Ammonium nitrate is a colourless, crystalline substance (melting point 169.6° C [337.3° F]).
