What does it mean to “fix” nitrogen or carbon?

Question

in microbiology, What does it mean to “fix” nitrogen or carbon?

Answer 1

Binding carbon or nitrogen to another chemical.

Usually, this is done to use or avoid using the chemical involved. For example trees, coal, oil and natural gas are all forms of fixing carbon. Since we are burning so much of them we are releasing the carbon into the atmosphere causing or at least enhancing Global Warming.

Nitrogen is an element needed by plants and despite it being the most common gas in our atmosphere plants get the nitrogen we need from the ground. We use fertilizers to “fix” the nitrogen in a chemical compound that the plants can use. It keeps the nitrogen in the soil long enough for the plants to use it.

One way to handle pollutants is to “fix” them. For example on common use for old tires is to shred them and add then to tar to create durable road surfaces. Mercury is a very dangerous pollutant whose mere touch can harm you. If we can find a way to “fix” mercury to something then we can get it out of the fish and our environment.

The best way of handling trash is to pull out what you can recycle, burn the rest for fuel, capturing the exhaust gases, and “fixing” them into a slag which can itself be used to create products; like a safe ground covering for playgrounds, a road surface, a roofing surface, or an insulating material.

“Fixing” is an important concept that allows us to lock a chemical to either keep it contained or to put it into a useful form.

Answer 2

Fix Carbon

Answer 3

It means you bind it to something else creating a new compound, for example, you fix carbon with oxygen to form carbon dioxide. In microbiology it probably refers to the carbon and nitrogen cycle, both of which can be described from a google search!