Researched
Haber-Bosch ammonia synthesis
Fritz Haber (1909) and Carl Bosch (1913) turned nitrogen from air into ammonia at industrial scale, making artificial fertilizer practically unlimited.
Open in the interactive tree →The process combines nitrogen and hydrogen over an iron catalyst at high pressure and temperature; BASF's Oppau plant started in 1913. Roughly half of the nitrogen in human bodies today comes from it, and world population grew from about 1.6 billion in 1900 to more than 8 billion. It uses about 1-2% of global energy and, by some estimates, causes up to 3% of CO2 emissions, and excess nitrogen pollutes waters and air.
Prerequisites
- Metallurgy (Bronze, Iron)~2500 BC
- Thermodynamics1824
- Catalysis1835Iron catalysts make high-pressure ammonia synthesis economical
- Mineral fertilizer1840