Carl Bosch Quotes

In 1909 Carl Bosch perfected a process invented by Fritz Haber which used methane and steam to pull nitrogen out of the air and turn it into fertilizer on an industrial scale, replacing the massive quantities of bird poop that had previously been needed to return nitrogen to depleted soils. Those two chemists top the list of the 20th-century scientists who saved the greatest number of lives in history, with 2.7 billion.

Further reading: The Omnivore’s Dilemma, by Michael Pollan Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch and the Transformation of World Food Production, by Vaclav Smil Salt, Sugar and Fat, by Michael Moss Maise for the Gods: Unearthing the 9,000-Year History of Corn, by Michael Blake

In 1909 Fritz Haber, a professor of chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe, succeeded in synthesizing ammonia from its elements (fig. 4.4). He did that by taking nitrogen from the air and hydrogen from reacting glowing coke with water vapor and combining the two elements under high pressure in the presence of a metal (iron) catalyst. His research was supported by BASF, at that time the world’s leader in the production of industrial chemicals, and it was under the leadership of Carl Bosch, one of BASF’s most capable engineers, that Haber’s bench-top demonstration was converted rapidly into a full-scale industrial synthesis (fig. 4.4).