Haber-Bosch process compound

Production of ammonia (NH ) Anhydrous (dry) ammonia is the fifth most produced industrial compound. The Haber-Bosch process uses steam on hot coke, which is mostly used in South Africa. In the United States, it is mostly produced from partial combustion of natural gas (methane) or by combining several gases using steam. Other methods use coke-oven gas, refinery gas (mostly methane), or even solar energy. Ammonia is toxic if inhaled and has a high pH value when mixed with water (hydration) to form ammonium hydroxide (NH OH), which has many uses, including as a household cleaner. Ammonia forms many compounds, including ammonium nitrate in fertilizer, rocket fuel, and explosives. Ammonia is also explosive when mixed with mercury or silver or when mixed as part of nitrocellulose. 

Dobereiner s lighter. In the very important Haber-Bosch process, Os- (and U-) compounds tvere first used by Bosch before World War I (Rompp 1990). Alloys which contain Pt, Rh and Pd in various ratios are used in form of very fine woven wire nets (wire 0 0.06-0.072 mm) as catalysts for the catalytic oxidation of NHj in nitric acid production (Biischel et al. 1999), whereby normal catalyst losses range from 0.05 to 0.35 g Pt per ton HNO3. According to the demand for PGM (see Table 20.3), approximately 40% of Pt, 75% of Pd and 95% of... 

In 1923 two German scientists, Franz Fischer (1877-1947) and Hans Tropsch (1889-1935) developed a process whereby coke exposed to steam in the presence of catalysts forms a variety of organic compounds (hydrocarbons, aldehydes, ketones, alcohols) depending upon the catalyst and other specific conditions. Around this time, Alwin Mittasch (1869-1953), who developed the catalyst for the Haber-Bosch Process (chapter 1), introduced a related reaction in which carbon monoxide and hydrogen are combined in the presence of chromium oxide and zinc oxide (and similar combinations) to form methanol. The Fischer-Tropsch process played an important role in the synthesis of fuels... 

The yield is nearly 11%, but the unreacted compounds reenter the cycle leading to an overall yield of 100%. Nearly 100% of the ammonia synthesized worldwide is produced by the Haber-Bosch process. Even though this technology is expensive, no low cost alternatives have been developed so far. 

A source of nitrogen compounds that would be limitless in principle would have to be found consequently, coke oven ammonia was practically eliminated as a factor in the ongoing war planning given its close connection with coal coking. For this reason, production of ammonia would basically have to rely on the Haber-Bosch process, but also on the cyana-... 

While for the early demonstration units, osmium and uranium had been used, it was the promoted iron (magnetite) catalyst developed by Mittasch that opened the door to commercialization of the Haber-Bosch process. Osmium had to be ruled out for cost and availability reasons, uranium is impracticable due to its sensitivity for permanent oxygen compound poisoning. Emphasizing the outstanding work of Haber, Bosch, and Mittasch, magnetite-based catalysts are still state of the art today. 

Ammonia and Related Compounds The Haber-Bosch process for the synthesis of ammonia involves the reaction below ... 

The confrontations regarding the BASF s Merseburg ammonia plant, later the Leuna-Werke, came just when the industry power struggle was being decided in favor of Big Chemistry. The cyanamide industry obviously wanted to get a piece of the permanently increased amount desired by the military. However, it could not refute the suspicion that its ammonia was unsuitable for the production of nitric acid. Indeed, the inferiority of the cyanamide industry s process, which was only suspected before April 1916, received confirmation in other areas as well. First, the operating conditions in the Reichsstickstoffwerke were "defectively established," as it was put, so that the available electrical power was not fully consumed. Second, and decisive for wartime, the process required twelve times as many workers as the Haber-Bosch procedure to produce the same amount of nitrogen. With the news of this factor, at the latest, the cyanamide industry, BASF s last serious competitor, fell out of the race. BASF and the other Dreibund partners now dominated the production of nitrogen compounds. 

The industrial process of Haber—Bosch basically emulates the nitrogen fixation process to provide the resources for agricultural production at a faster pace to meet the rising demand. The industrial production of ammonia therefore provided a boost to production of nitrogen-based products. Ammonia is the basic building block for numerous chemical compounds downstream, such as conversion to polymers, fertilizers, etc. (Table 12.1). 

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