Remembering the inventor of ammonia synthesis
On August 28.08th, Carl Bosch – an important chemist from Germany – would have turned 150 years old.
Bosch, born in Cologne in 1874, revolutionized what is now the world's largest industrial process - catalytic ammonia synthesis and thus fertilizer production. The latter has enabled the population explosion of the last hundred years - including me, the author 😉. In 1931, Bosch received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his role in developing the Haber-Bosch process. But there is no light without a shadow - ammonia synthesis facilitated industrial explosives production in the German Reich and thus prolonged the First World War. Furthermore, the name of the Cologne chemist is forever linked to the poison gas developer Fritz Haber, as both of them developed the "Haber-Bosch process" together before the First World War.
The Max Planck Society runs the famous “Fritz Haber Institute for Catalysis” in Berlin – around 1990 I personally witnessed first hand the critical debate about the name of this institution by the institute’s director, Prof. Ertl – himself later a Nobel Prize winner. Yes, we all bear responsibility for our actions.
Dr. Julius Nickl Jr.
#catalysts #adsorption #catalysis #haberbosch
Image source: Archive of the Max Planck Society, Berlin, VI. Abt., Rep. 1, Carl Bosch, ca. 1940
