Five Chemicals that Changed History: Ammonia

NH3 (Ammonia)

The Chemistry

The main method of synthesizing ammonia on an industrial scale is using the Haber-Bosch Process, sometimes known as just the Haber Process. In the Haber process, nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas react in an exothermic synthesis reaction to produce ammonia. On the industrial scale, high temperature and pressure, along with iron based catalysts, are used to increase the yield of ammonia.

Ammonia has two major applications: fertilizer and explosives.





Of the nutrients necessary for plant growth, nitrogen is quite hard to obtain. Though air is 78% nitrogen, it must be fixed into a bio-available form through either natural or man-made processes. The development of the Haber process was so significant that it is estimated that fertilizer from ammonia produced by the Haber process helps sustain one-third of the Earth's population, and half the protein within human beings is made of nitrogen originally fixed using the Haber process.

As for explosives, the Haber-Bosch process allows ammonia to be oxidized and converted into nitric acid, which is the basis of explosives such as ammonium nitrate, nitro-glycerine, and trinitrotoluene (TNT). According to the International Nitrogen Initiative, it is responsible for the death of 150 million people.

The International Nitrogen Initiative also has more information about how ammonia is "the substance that changed the world."
Check it out: http://www.ini-europe.org/node/16

The History

The Haber-Bosch process was developed by a German scientist, Fritz Haber, in 1909. Carl Bosch then applied the process to an industrial scale, allowing for the agricultural independence of Germany in the first world war. Both Haber and Bosch won Nobel prizes for their developments.

World War I was a major application for chemical explosives derived from ammonia formed by the Haber-Bosch process. In 1910-1911, Bosch developed double-tubed hydrogen-resistant converters, which eventually led to the industrial conversion of ammonia to nitric acid, a main component of explosives used in the German military. Ammonia was first manufactured industrially in the BASF's Oppau plant in Germany, producing up to 20 tons of ammonia per day.

About Haber and Bosch: (I found this interesting because neither lived particularly happy lives)




       Fritz Haber                   Carl Bosch



Haber is known as the "father of chemical warfare." Haber won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918. He did not mention the role of ammonia in chemical warfare in his acceptance speech at the Swiss Nobel Academy. Haber's wife, who opposed his work in chemical warfare, committed suicide in 1915. Haber left Germany following Hitler's rise to power and died of heart failure in 1934.

Bosch won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931. Bosch was a victim of depression and died in 1940.