Posted on 06/04/2014 10:30:17 PM PDT by ReaganÜberAlles
One of the forgotten battles of the first world war was fought for Chilean dirt. It wasn't just any dirt, though – it was caliche, a whitish substance rich in the crucial mineral sodium nitrate. Nitrates are the active ingredient of bombs and bullets.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
The deposits in Chile were controlled by the British who had no natural sources.
The U.S. still has massive deposits of it in Wyoming, but back then Europe was running out.
Then two Germans invented the process to make nitrate from the air that we all breath (because Nitrogen in our air is the most plentiful element on Earth).
That’s the Haber-Bosch process (of eventual Bosch mega-corp fame). It’s still used today.
Without the Haber-Bosch process, Europe would have run out of fertilizer and gun-powder due to a lack of nitrates.
Nitrate scrounging was also why battles were fought over tiny guano-islands. Birds leave deposits that are mined for nitrates...not really needed now that the Industrial world uses Haber-Bosch.
Prior to the Haber-Bosch process, books and editorials were written lamenting the over-population of Earth due to the world’s nitrate supplies drying up, limiting farm production due to a lack of fertilizer.
Pre Haber-Bosch, they were right, too. That hysteria remained in society, however, long after that century old process was discovered.
Never heard of a WW I battle in this hemisphere, as small as it was.
!
Fritz Haber also was instrumental in developing Chlorine gas ( a by product of the Haber Bosch reaction) as a war gas, despite which he won a Noble Prize in 1919. later as a Jew he was persecuted by the Nazis despite his service to Germany in WW I.
Basically they were fighting over control of giant piles of bird sh#t....
well, that’s special...
No. The Haber Bosch process synthesizes ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen by the process:
N2 + 3 H2 2 NH3
Notice that there is no “CL” in there. Clorine comes from salt (chem formula NaCl), not from the amonia of the Haber-Bosch process.
Haber did invent some gas masks, some gas filters, and the Haber rule for how long the enemy needed to be exposed to a given gas dosage, though.
But those weren’t part of the Haber-Bosch process, as shown above chemically.
N2 + 3 H2 = 2 NH3
Ironically, the caliche to nitrate to Haber-Bosch story is duplicated in Great Britain concerning another ordinance material. And it also resulted in an event of global significance.
Acetone was necessary to the production of cordite, the smokeless gunpowder. Unlike the caliche deposits in Chile, the Germans maintained control of the primary source of acetone -- the calcium acetate deposits in Morocco.
As a consequence, the UK found itself unable to manufacture cordite as the war began. However, Chaim Weizmann was then a refugee in Great Britain...and, as a chemist, he had invented a process for synthesizing acetone. Weizmann, a leader of the Zionist movement, essentially traded the license to his process to the British government in return for the Balfour Declaration.
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
And, thus, was the foundation laid for the formation of Israel.
You can make acetone from isopropyl alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, but any acid impurities/additives in the H2O2 makes unstable explosives, instead. Done purely, you liberate water plus get acetone.
C3H8O1 (isopropyl alcohol) + H2O2 (hydrogen peroxide) = 2 H2O + C3H6O1 (acetone)
Nitrogen is the most common element in the Earth’s atmosphere, but it is not the most common element on Earth, neither in the Earth’s crust nor in its interior. Overall, I think it ranks about 30th on the list.
I stand corrected, I thought I had read chlorine was involved at some point in the industrial process to get the ammonia. However Haber is still considered the father of gas warfare, and a major factor in Germanys gas warfare program.
I learned of the process from that 70s James Burke documentary Connections.
Connections was the best! Thanks for reminding.
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