Saltpeter
Introduction
Saltpeter is a mixture of potassium nitrate (KNO) and sodium nitrate (NaNO).[1] It is found naturally in large areas of South America, mainly in the Uyuni salt flat in Bolivia and in the northern part of Chile, and in the El Pedernoso region with thicknesses of up to 3.6 meters. It appears associated with deposits of sodium chloride (NaCl), gypsum, other salts and sand, and forms a group called caliche.
It is mainly used in the manufacture of acids (nitric and sulfuric) and potassium nitrate. In addition, it is an oxidizing agent and is used in agriculture as a nitrogen fertilizer that can replace urea due to its high nitrogen content.
Other uses are in medicine and in the manufacture of gunpowder, dynamite and other explosives, pyrotechnics, glass, matches "Phosphorus (element)"), gases, sodium salts, pigments, food preservatives and glaze for pottery, among others.
History
A legend says that it happened when two indigenous people from the area made a bonfire, and the earth, which contained saltpeter, began to burn. When the priest of Camiña "Camiña (Chile)") found out, and carrying holy water, he collected some samples and recognized that they contained potassium nitrate. Another part of the samples was in the patio of the priest's house, and later he observed that the plants developed extraordinarily.[2].
The saltpeter boom took place in the middle of the century and lost economic importance following the development and production of synthetic saltpeter at the end of the First World War. Economies such as Chile, mainly based on the exploitation of this mineral, were strongly affected.
There was a monopoly on saltpeter; That is, at different stages Bolivia, Chile and Peru became the only producers. In Bolivia and Peru, from the 1830s to 1884, and then in Chile, from 1884 until its decline in the 1920s. The exploitation of saltpeter from the old Bolivian coast "Departamento del Litoral (Bolivia)") was always in the hands of Chilean capital; in the Peruvian stage, in the hands of national companies and, in the 1870s, in the hands of the Peruvian State; in the Chilean stage, in the hands of companies created with English capital, mostly, and, to a lesser extent, German and American capital.
In 1971, the already decadent saltpeter industry was nationalized and its exploitation was assumed by the Sociedad Química y Minera de Chile (Soquimich), which would later be privatized; Currently it is practically the only company dedicated to it, and it does so mainly through the solar evaporation system, created in the late 1940s by the American engineer Edgar Stanley Freed,[3] who came to be considered "as the man in the world who had the most complete knowledge about the physical and chemical characteristics of caliche."[4].