Characterization of Single Superphosphate Powders – a study of Milling Effects on Solubilization Kinetics

Conventional single superphosphate (SSP) is known as one of the most important and common sources of phosphorus in agriculture. Despite SSP has been widely produced as a fertilizer, a few studies have been done to describe the fundamental aspects of this P-fertilizer, i.e., phase composition, thermal degradation behavior, and solubility kinetics. Therefore, this paper reports on the detailed characterization of SSP powders by correlating their properties with particle size and surface area. Commercial SSP fertilizers were milled under different conditions and the resulting powders were characterized by X-ray diffraction, thermogravimetric analyses, scanning electron microscopy, FT-IR spectroscopy, and solubilization tests. It was observed that short milling times favored the solubilization kinetics, whereas long milling times were deleterious due to agglomeration effects. It was pointed out that agglomeration plays an important role in phosphate availability. These results provided a deeper understanding of SSP powders in microstructural terms, and may be used as a foundation for the development of novel strategies of alternative production of phosphorus fertilizers.