Synthesis of ammonia Fertilizer, bombs, and other uses Irritant Ethics Commentary

Fritz Haber chemistry

Synthesis of ammonia

• Nitrogen is the most abundant element in our atmosphere
• and is essential for life; however, its gaseous diatomic form is inert.
• Ammonia is composed of one part nitrogen and three parts hydrogen
• but if you combine nitrogen gas with hydrogen nothing happens.
• Plants harbor an enzyme in a bacterium to break nitrogen-nitrogen bonds
• to convert nitrogen gas to ammonia or nitrate. Before an efficient industrial process
• was available, nitrate or ammonia was extracted from camel dung,
• and from the distillation of coal, and by the decomposition of natural ammonium salts.
• Fritz Haber discovered that iron filings worked as a catalyst, producing ammonia,
• and by increasing heat and pressure managed to increase the yield to six percent.
• Six percent was commercially viable, especially when
• the unreacted nitrogen and hydrogen gases could be recirculated over and over.

Fertilizer, bombs, and other uses

• Cleaner
• Disinfectant
• Explosive
• Fertilizer
• Lifting gas
• Refrigerant
• Rocket fuel
• Stimulant

Irritant

• A colorless and irritating gas with an acrid odor,
• ammonia is corrosive when mixed with water,
• and can burn the skin,
• cause blindness,
• brain damage,
• lung damage,
• or death.

Ethics

• In World War I, the Germans
• had no shortage of ammonia for bombs and rocket fuel
• due to Fritz Haber, a Jew. Haber also worked hard
• to develop chemical weapons for the Germans,
• leading the teams that developed chlorine gas and gas masks,
• and personally overseeing the first gas releases on the front lines.
• In the twenties, at Haber’s institute,
• scientists developed the cyanide gas Zyclon A,
• which the Nazis modified and used to murder Jews
• in concentration camps during the Holocaust.
• Both his wife Clara and his son Hermann
• committed suicide over their conflicts
• with his work on chemical warefare agents.