The Haber-Bosch process
Nitrogen is pulled from the air, and roughly half the people alive owe their existence to it.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 4 years
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Industrial, Holocene
Fritz Haber synthesises ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen in 1909 and Carl Bosch industrialises it by 1913. Before this, fixed nitrogen came from guano, saltpetre and legumes, and Crookes had warned in 1898 that the world faced starvation. Synthetic fertiliser lifts that ceiling; around half of the nitrogen in a typical human body today passed through the process. Haber also directed Germany's chemical weapons programme, and the same plants made explosives.