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Fritz Haber. Carl Bosch. December 9 th , 1868 Won a Nobel Prize in chemistry Studied chemistry at University of Heidelberg and Berlin. August 27 th , 1874 Won a Nobel prize in chemistry Studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig Engineer at BASF(chemical company).
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Fritz Haber Carl Bosch • December 9th , 1868 • Won a Nobel Prize in chemistry • Studied chemistry at University of Heidelberg and Berlin • August 27th , 1874 • Won a Nobel prize in chemistry • Studied chemistry at the University of Leipzig • Engineer at BASF(chemical company)
Nitrogen is an element that is important in photosynthesis Nitrogen makes up ¾ of the air we breathe To be useable to living things one nitrogen atom must be bonded to three hydrogen atoms Nitrogen atoms in our air bond together forming a triple bond Nitrogen in this form is very difficult to break making it useless to living things Nitrogen is one the most difficult nutrients to obtain for plants The soils nitrogen supply came from dead plants, animals and manure and even lighting because of its high energy breaking the nitrogen bond
In the 1900’s half the worlds nitrogen was obtained by Chilean saltpeter which are sodium nitrate in rock deposits The supply would only last around 30 more years Many scientist predicted starvation from the depletion of nitrogen In March 1909 Fritz Haber created a very small amount of ammonia in his lab Combining hydrogen and nitrogen would not work in large scale Carl Bosch modified Fritz Haber’s and his company BASF created the first commercial ammonia factory in Germany 1913, and that is when the Haber Bosch process derived from
Stage One Two main reactants for making ammonia are hydrogen gas and nitrogen gas Nitrogen is obtained from the air we breatheand methane is reacted with steam over a catalyst to form carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas Methane that has not reacted is then reacted again to form more hydrogen gas CH4(g) + H2O(g) CO(g) +3H2(g) STAGE TWO The chemicals are taken through a catalysor which will react the CO(g) with more steam to form CO2(g) and more hydrogen. This process is called catalytic shift conversion
Stage three After CO(g) has been converted, the chemical mixture is put through a Pressure Swing Adsorption The PSA removes a gas from a mixture of gasses through an adsorbent material CO2(g) is removed from the mixture to leave only pure hydrogen and nitrogen gas STAGE FOUR To produce the ammonia now the nitrogen and hydrogen gases are sent through a reactor to form anhydrous liquid ammonia 3H2(g) + N2(g) 2NH3(g)
Stage Five The ammonia is then cooled to become a liquid Any unreacted nitrogen and hydrogen is sent back to the reactor to be recycled and used to make more ammonia The ammonia can be used to make many things such as explosives and fertilizers for crops Without the Haber process there would be less food, higher price for food and the population on earth would decrease
Bibliography https://news.slac.stanford.edu/features/phrase-week-haber-bosch-process http://www.idsia.ch/~juergen/haberbosch.html http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/250771/Haber-Bosch-process http://www.chemgeneration.com/milestones/the-haber-bosch-process.html http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/equilibria/haber.html http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Haber_process.html