Nitrogen fixation Germany

Gallon, J. R. and Chaplin, A. E. 1988. Recent studies on N2 fixation by nonheterocystous cyanobacteria. In Bothe F. J., de Bruijin F. J., Newton, W. E. (eds) Nitrogen Fixation Hundreds Years After. Gustav Fischer, Stuttgart, Germany, p. 183. 

Ammonium nitrate production became a major fiictor towards the end of World War I once the merits of amatol, an 80 20 mixture of ammonium nitrate and TNT, had been accepted by the Services as the most expedient method of extending the hmited TNT supplies. Nitrogen fixation for fertilizers was the objective of the Haber process for ammonia and the successful chenjical engineering of this process had made Germany independent of the Chile nitrate supplies by 1918. The plant at Oppau made 25 tons/day of ammonia. The British requirement for ammonium nitrate was 4000 tons/week by the end of the war, which was met largely with gas works ammonia, Chile nitrate, and some manu cture via a Birkland-Eyre oxidation furnace and calcium nitrate. 

The BASF representatives were chemist Carl Bosch and catalyst expert Alwin Mittasch. They were there to find out whether the backing for Haber s nitrogen fixation studies by the head of the managing board, Heinrich von Brunck, had finally paid of Though the apparatus had been tested and found successful, the initial outcome of the demonstration seemed disappointing the apparatus refused to work. Carl Bosch left to attend to other business. Mittasch remained in the laboratory and later in the day was rewarded when the apparatus delivered 100 cubic centimetres of ammonia. He was convinced Haber had overcome the laboratory difficulties involved in the synthesis of ammonia. Patents for the continuous process were filed in Germany and elsewhere, and Haber came to an agreement with BASF over royalties. ... 

Germany s war effort, too, may have been saved from defeat by a chemist. At the start of World War 1, both Fritz Haber and a rival, Walther Nernst, served as scientific consultants for the German military. Earlier, during civilian life, Nernst had blocked Haber s appointment as professor of physical chemistry at the University of Leipzig. Nernst also told his students that he was really the one responsible for the Haber process of fixating nitrogen. Polite in public, there was no love lost between these two chemistry professors, and Haber would soon have professional revenge. 

---