Zahlen, bitte! 180 million tons of ammonia thanks to the Haber-Bosch process
Ammonia is one of the most important chemicals in modern society. It is obtained using the process developed by Carl Bosch 150 years ago.
The chemist and process engineer Carl Bosch was born in Cologne 150 years ago. He became known worldwide when, together with Fritz Haber, he succeeded in 1913 in realizing large-scale ammonia synthesis at BASF's purpose-built factory in Oppau near Ludwigshafen.
In the very first year, BASF produced 40 tons of ammonia per day using the "Haber-Bosch process" of catalytic high-pressure technology, which was further processed into mineral fertilizer ("bread from the air") and explosives. During the First World War, Bosch made the "saltpetre promise" and assured the army command that they would always have enough ammunition to wage war. At the peace negotiations in Versailles, he prevented the dismantling of the factories. In 1931, he and Friedrich Bergius were awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. It was the first time that the invention of a technical process had been honored.
(Image:Â Nobel Foundation)
And the technical process had consequences: In a worldwide annual production of now around 180 million tons, ammonia is one of the most important chemicals of all, 99 percent of which is produced using the Haber-Bosch process. To produce it, hydrogen and nitrogen are exposed to temperatures between 400 and 450 °C and pressures of 120 to 220 bar and converted to ammonia in an iron-based catalyst. 80 percent of the ammonia obtained in this way is processed into fertilizer, which ensures food supplies worldwide. Production is responsible for 1.4 percent of global CO₂ emissions and 1 percent of energy consumption.
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Childhood in a sheltered home
Carl Bosch was born into a wealthy family 150 years ago. His father owned a plumbing business, where his uncle Robert Bosch also worked for a time. He was sent to the Ober-Realschule, not the humanistic Gymnasium. After school, he completed a metalworking apprenticeship at MarienhĂĽtte in Kotzenau, now ChocianĂłw. He began studying metallurgy and materials engineering (metallurgy) at the Charlottenburg Technical University, but soon transferred to the University of Leipzig, where he majored in chemistry. At the age of 24, he obtained his doctorate in organic chemistry there and then went to the Badische Anilin & Soda-Fabrik (BASF) in Ludwigshafen. There he was entrusted with the expansion of the phthalic acid factory and thus became familiar with the construction of large-scale process plants.
After the discovery of artificial fertilizer by John Bennet Lawes methods of producing fertilizer on a large scale were sought worldwide. The possibility of using the nitrogen contained in the air to synthesize ammonia was investigated by Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe and handed over to BASF, which patented the process (PDF). Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1918, immediately after the First World War. Carl Bosch was entrusted with the task of developing a large-scale industrial plant. The basic idea was to trigger a catalytic reaction under high pressure and high temperature so that ammonia could be produced from nitrogen in the air and hydrogen. Reactors were built in numerous experiments, but they often exploded.
In 1911, Bosch came up with the idea of designing a double tube in which the heat could be dissipated in the outer tube. Construction of the factory for the process known as Haber-Bosch began in 1912 and the entire plant went into operation on September 9, 1913. Already in the first year, 40 tons per day could be produced. BASF patented the process as a company, and Carl Bosch is named as the inventor in the corresponding US patent.
Ammonia as a chemical vital to the war effort
The successful head of the new "Nitrogen Department" became a deputy member of the BASF Board of Executive Directors in 1914. In this function, he made the "nitric promise" at the beginning of the world war. In technical terms, it was a purchase guarantee from the Supreme Army Command and a loan of 35 million Reichsmarks, which was used to build another ammonia plant (Leunawerke). In his acceptance speech on receiving the Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1932, Bosch acknowledged the moral dilemma: "When I was assigned the task of developing nitrogen products for the needs of the army and agriculture at the beginning of the war, and I succeeded in completing the task within the scheduled time, I often asked myself later whether it would not have been better if we had not succeeded. The war might have ended more quickly, with probably less misery and better conditions. Gentlemen, these questions are all pointless. Progress in science and technology cannot be stopped." Progress itself also cost human lives: in 1921, there was an explosion at the Oppau plant, which is considered the largest industrial accident in German history with 599 deaths and over 2000 injuries.
(Image:Â CC BY-SA 3.0, BASF Archiv)
At the end of the First World War, Carl Bosch, now Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors of BASF, was involved in the peace negotiations in Versailles. He was able to prevent the French from proposing to close the plants in Oppau and Leuna, but in return had to allow them to use the ammonia patent. His argument for keeping the plants open was that the threat of famine knew no bounds.
Industrial community I. G. Farben is founded
Now the manager of a group, Bosch set about consolidating the German chemical companies under the umbrella of the "Interessengemeinschaft Farbenindustrie", or I.G. Farben for short. The background to this merger was the industry's attempt to produce synthetic gasoline from coal using the high-pressure technology of the "Bergius process" following the production of ammonia and methanol. The financial outlay required for this exceeded the chemical industry's resources many times over, which led to a contract between the government and the industry in 1933, similar to the nitrate promise. In this "petrol contract" (or Feder-Bosch agreement), IG Farben committed itself to the annual production of 300,000 tons of synthetic petrol, while the German Reich provided a guarantee for the economic viability of all Leunawerke products.
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Bosch's tense relationship with the National Socialists must be seen against this background. As Chairman of the Board of Management of I.G. Farben, Bosch approved the donation of 400,000 Reichsmarks to the NSDAP to support the Reichstag elections in March 1933, the largest single donation to the party that propagated German autarky.
On the other hand, he rejected the anti-Semitism of the National Socialists and was committed to Jewish researchers such as Lise Meitner and Fritz Haber and tried to protect them during his short time as President of the Kaiser Wilhelm Society.
Contempt as a scientist towards the dictatorship
After the death of Fritz Haber, who had fled into exile, he appeared at a memorial service for his friend on the first anniversary of his death. In one of his last public appearances on May 7, 1939 in Munich, he gave a "speech of thanks" to Adolf Hitler while heavily intoxicated. According to eyewitness Franz-Josef Baumgärtner, Bosch is reported to have said(PDF) "that science could only flourish freely and without paternalism and that the economy and the state would inevitably perish if science were forced into such stifling political, ideological and racist restrictions as under National Socialism." After the speech, he lost positions under the Nazis, such as the presidency of the Lilienthal Society for Aviation Research, and had to go to a sanatorium due to severe alcohol-induced depression. Bosch died in Heidelberg on April 26, 1940.
(Image:Â Reinhard Ferdinand)
To commemorate the 150th anniversary of Carl Bosch's birth, the Federal Ministry of Finance issued a special stamp. It shows not only chemical equipment and the reactors of the Haber-Bosch process, but also a butterfly, Saturn and our Earth, to describe what else interested him: Bosch was a carpenter and tried his hand at glassblowing, and he compiled an extensive collection of insects, which is now housed at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main. He was an enthusiastic amateur astronomer and helped to finance the Einstein Tower in Potsdam. In 1926, he also financed the silent film "The Flower Miracle", which was actually intended to advertise fertilizers but was a great success in cinemas as a cultural film with orchestral accompaniment.
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