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The Haber-Bosch Process

By Lisa Su

The History of the Haber-Bosch Process

Conditions Carried Out

In the early 1800s, nitrogen was named as one of the most important element for agriculture. It could be converted into nitric acid, which produces gunpowder and TNT. These powerful explosives were essential for warfare. Nitrogen makes up a large portion of the atmosphere, but chemists had yet to discover a way to fix it into something usable.

Then, in 1909, Fritz Haber successfully fixed atmospheric nitrogen. World War I quickly followed this discovery, which prompted a demand for ammonia in order to provide Germany with the gunpowder and explosives necessary for war. Without this process, Germany would almost certainly have run out of munitions by 1916, thereby ending the war.

Ammonia extraction was cheap due to the unlimited source of nitrogen in the atmosphere. Therefore, intensive agriculture developed in order to support the world's population.

The Haber-Bosch Process is important because ammonia is difficult to produce in large amounts. Ammonia is used to make fertilizer, which is responsible to produce enough food for the world.

In order to maximize the amount of ammonia produced each day, 400°C to 450°C is usually the temperature that the reaction is carried out in. This temperature is a compromise temperature

since if the temperature is too low, the reaction would take too long.

200 atmospheres is the pressure usually used; it is a high pressure, but not extremely high. The higher the pressure, the more expensive to produce. So, 200 atm is a compromise pressure based on pricing.

Since ammonia is so highly demanded to produce fertilizer, it must be able to be quickly and cost effectively produced in large amounts. Agriculture relies on a lot of fertilizer to quickly produce food for people, but it should not be so expensive that people cannot afford the food.

Catalyst

The Haber-Bosch Process Overview

A catalyst has no effect on the position of equilibrium. In other words, adding a catalyst does not produce any more ammonia than without using a catalyst. A catalyst only speeds up the reaction.

Enriched iron or ruthenium is used as a catalyst is because without it, the reaction would be so slow and unpractical. The catalyst makes the reaction reach dynamic equilibrium within a short period of time.

The Haber Process combines nitrogen from the air with hydrogen gas, derived mainly from methane, and turns that into ammonia. The process was developed in order to find a cost efficient way to produce large amounts of ammonia. Ammonia was and still is highly demanded to make various explosives (during World War II) and nitrogen fertilizer. The Haber-Bosch Process is probably the most important industrial process ever to be developed during the twentieth century since fertilizer is highly demanded in order to support the Earth's population with food.

1909

2010

2005

2000

1900

The Equation

References

Considerations

Conditions that Favor Forward Reaction

The Masterminds

Clark, Jim. "The Haber Process for the Manufacture of Ammonia." The Haber Process for the Manufacture of Ammonia. © Jim Clark 2002, Apr. 2013.

Web. 10 May 2014.

<http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/equilibria/haber.html>.

"History of the Haber Process." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Jan. 2014. Web. 11 May 2014.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process>.

"Haber Process." Princeton University. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014.

<http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Haber_process.html>.

May, Paul. "The Haber Process." The Haber Process. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 May 2014. <http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/~paulmay/haber/haber.htm>.

"Haber Process." Haber Process. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014.

<http://www.kentchemistry.com/links/Kinetics/Haber.htm>.

"Haber Process Research." Haber Process Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 May 2014. <http://haberchemistry.tripod.com/>.

Since the Haber-Bosch Process is an exothermic reaction, according to Le Chatelier's Principle, lowering the temperature will favor the forward reaction and produce more ammonia. Cooling the system will make it respond by moving toward the right to reach equilibrium.

Adding more reactants- nitrogen and hydrogen gas- will increase the rate of the forward reaction and produce more ammonia.

Increasing the pressure (or decreasing the volume) during the reaction will shift the reaction toward the right since there are less moles of products (2) than moles of reactants (4).

The lower the temperature that the Haber-Bosch Process is in, the more ammonia produced. However, the lower the temperature also means the slower the reaction. If the process was put at an extremely low temperature, a very large amount of ammonia would be produced, but it would take years. So, for time purposes, the temperature is raised.

The greater the pressure that the Haber-Bosch Process is put at, the more ammonia produced. However, very high pressures would make the process too expensive. To be economical, the process is not put at such high pressures.

Therefore, for time and cost purposes, the conditions to produce the highest yield of ammonia are not used during the process.

In 1909, German chemist Fritz Haber successfully discovered a process that transformed atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia.

This process was purchased and then assigned to Carl Bosch, another German chemist. His task was to turn Haber's original process to an industrial-level production, which he succeeded in 1910.

Haber and Bosch were both awarded Nobel prizes, in 1918 and 1931, respectively.

Fritz Haber (left) and Carl Bosch (right)

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