What was the adjusted operating income for ICL in the second quarter of 2022 
list by the St Louis Business Journal for its 2022 Corporate Philanthropy and Innovation and Philanthropy award. One item in common for all of these endeavors and achievements is the fact that they span the globe. From Israel to Spain and on to China, India, U.S., and beyond, ICL employees are leading, innovating, and improving conditions on earth through their sustainability efforts. Finally, I would like to wrap up my portion of today's call by reviewing Slide 11.
While this has been unusual year so far, we have continued to focus on the future and our long-term specialty strategy and we will continue to do so as this allows ICL to strengthen its leadership position in comparison to its more commodity based peers. Our performance in the quarter reaffirms our specialty strategy. And our strong balance sheet allows us to focus on business expansion opportunities in this area including the ability to grow through M&A, investments in R&D, capacity, and new products among others. We do not have clarity as to how the global macro environment will play out for the remainder of 2022.
However, for the second half of the year, we expect to continue to leverage our position as a global provider of specialty chemical solutions and to reap additional benefit from our Brazilian business as the Southern Hemisphere enters its key planting season. We also expect to see continued profitability from our businesses such as our YPH joint venture in China and our polysulphate operations in the United Kingdom, as well as our metal magnesium business all which had negative contribution in the past. We will also continue to innovate in areas like production for LFP batteries and across the food and agricultural end markets. Especially during this time of food crisis, it is important for us to do our part to help innovate and find solutions for the challenges around the world.
While we are currently at the top part of the commodity cycle and are seeing great results, we must remember that this is a temporary high and then we need to keep our eye on the ball and continue to focus on a strong future of long-term cash generation and value creation for our shareholders. As always, I want to thank the entire ICL family of employees spread out across the globe for all their hard work and contributions as we delivered record results once again. This quarter, we are celebrating 100 years of history of our company and feel proud that we broke our all-time sales and profitability records once again. And with that, I will turn the call over to Aviram.
Aviram Lahav -- Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Raviv, and to all of you for joining us today. While you've already seen Slide 13, I would like to call out a few additional highlights. Second quarter adjusted operating income of $1,139 million was up more than 380% and adjusted operating margin of 39.5% was up dramatically from 14.6% in the second quarter of last year. For the quarter, adjusted net income of $751 million was up more than 450% year over year.
If you will turn to Slide 14, you will see that many of the macro trends we saw in the first quarter continued into the second. Global growth remained strong even as inflation continued to soar in most countries and both commodity and grain prices remained high. The situation in Ukraine has not been resolved and it seems as if each day brings changes and in some cases even greater uncertainty. There have been limited relief from the supply chain disruptions for ICL and others around the world.
However, our supply chain procurement and logistics teams have worked tirelessly to overcome these challenges and we have continued to leverage our advantageous production locations and the global supply chain capabilities. In addition, currencies have continued to fluctuate with the U.S. dollar surging to its highest level in nearly two decades, at times hovering its parity with the euro. On slide 15, you can see prices for potash and sulfur continues to trend higher during the second quarter while phosphoric acid prices taper and freight rates declined slightl
list by the St Louis Business Journal for its 2022 Corporate Philanthropy and Innovation and Philanthropy award. One item in common for all of these endeavors and achievements is the fact that they span the globe. From Israel to Spain and on to China, India, U.S., and beyond, ICL employees are leading, innovating, and improving conditions on earth through their sustainability efforts. Finally, I would like to wrap up my portion of today's call by reviewing Slide 11.
While this has been unusual year so far, we have continued to focus on the future and our long-term specialty strategy and we will continue to do so as this allows ICL to strengthen its leadership position in comparison to its more commodity based peers. Our performance in the quarter reaffirms our specialty strategy. And our strong balance sheet allows us to focus on business expansion opportunities in this area including the ability to grow through M&A, investments in R&D, capacity, and new products among others. We do not have clarity as to how the global macro environment will play out for the remainder of 2022.
However, for the second half of the year, we expect to continue to leverage our position as a global provider of specialty chemical solutions and to reap additional benefit from our Brazilian business as the Southern Hemisphere enters its key planting season. We also expect to see continued profitability from our businesses such as our YPH joint venture in China and our polysulphate operations in the United Kingdom, as well as our metal magnesium business all which had negative contribution in the past. We will also continue to innovate in areas like production for LFP batteries and across the food and agricultural end markets. Especially during this time of food crisis, it is important for us to do our part to help innovate and find solutions for the challenges around the world.
While we are currently at the top part of the commodity cycle and are seeing great results, we must remember that this is a temporary high and then we need to keep our eye on the ball and continue to focus on a strong future of long-term cash generation and value creation for our shareholders. As always, I want to thank the entire ICL family of employees spread out across the globe for all their hard work and contributions as we delivered record results once again. This quarter, we are celebrating 100 years of history of our company and feel proud that we broke our all-time sales and profitability records once again. And with that, I will turn the call over to Aviram.
Aviram Lahav -- Chief Financial Officer
 Thank you, Raviv, and to all of you for joining us today. While you've already seen Slide 13, I would like to call out a few additional highlights. Second quarter adjusted operating income of $1,139 million was up more than 380% and adjusted operating margin of 39.5% was up dramatically from 14.6% in the second quarter of last year. For the quarter, adjusted net income of $751 million was up more than 450% year over year.
If you will turn to Slide 14, you will see that many of the macro trends we saw in the first quarter continued into the second. Global growth remained strong even as inflation continued to soar in most countries and both commodity and grain prices remained high. The situation in Ukraine has not been resolved and it seems as if each day brings changes and in some cases even greater uncertainty. There have been limited relief from the supply chain disruptions for ICL and others around the world.
However, our supply chain procurement and logistics teams have worked tirelessly to overcome these challenges and we have continued to leverage our advantageous production locations and the global supply chain capabilities. In addition, currencies have continued to fluctuate with the U.S. dollar surging to its highest level in nearly two decades, at times hovering its parity with the euro. On slide 15, you can see prices for potash and sulfur continues to trend higher during the second quarter while phosphoric acid prices taper and freight rates declined slightl