How A Century of Ammonia Synthesis Changed the World

Fritz Haber filed a patent for the synthesis of ammonia and won the Nobel Prize for it.
He discovered how you can react the unusable atmospheric di-nitrogen with hydrogen in
the presence of iron at high temperature and pressure to make ammonia. The reaction is
now known as the Fritz-Bosch process (Bosch developed it on an industrial scale).
Habers main motivation for synthesizing it was for the growing demand for food. His
other motivation was to provide the raw materials for explosives to be used in weapons,
which require large amounts of reactive nitrogen.
Haber did not foresee the environmental changes that occurred, including the increase in
water and air pollution, the perturbation of greenhouse-gas levels, and the loss of
biodiversity that was to result from the colossal increase in ammonia production and use
that was to ensue.

Economic and Security Benefits
The Haber-Bosch process of fixing nitrogen was much cheaper and had lower energy
requirements than extracting it from coal or from the known processes at the time to fix
nitrogen.

Explosives
Haber was keen on developing explosives due to him believing it was more humane as it
would shorten the war.
The ammonia was oxidized to nitric acid and used to produce ammonium nitrate,
nitroglycerine, trinitrotoluene (TNT), and other nitrogen-containing explosives.

Fertilizers
Without the Haber-Bosch process, the world population would be much smaller than it is
now. The number of humans supported per hectare of land has increased from 1.9 to 4.3
persons between 1908 and 2008. This was mainly possible because of Haber-Bosch
nitrogen.
It has been estimated that about 30-50% of the crop yield increase has been due to
nitrogen application through mineral fertilizer.
Overall, it is suggested that nitrogen fertilizer has supported approximately 27% of the
worlds population over the past century (~ 4 billion people). In 2008, they estimate 48%
of the lives of people are made possible by Haber-Bosch nitrogen.
Fertilizer is required for bio-energy and bio-fuel production. They currently arent
common fuel sources, but that is set to increase which will make Haber-Bosch more
important.

Unintended Consequences
80% of the total nitrogen manufactured is used in the production of agricultural fertilizers.
A large proportion of this nitrogen is lost to the environment. In 2000, the global
nitrogen-use efficiency was 30%, down from 80% in 1960.
About 20% of the nitrogen is used to make chemical compounds. The amount that
escapes is dependent on the product.
About 40% of the fertilizer nitrogen lost to the environment is denitrified back to un-
reactive atmospheric nitrogen. The rest of the excess nitrogen escapes into environmental
reservoirs, where it will eventually be denitrified or stored as fossil fuel reactive nitrogen.
Emissions of NO and NH
3
have increased fivefold since pre-industrial times.
Much of this reaction nitrogen is deposited in nitrogen-limited ecosystems, leading to
unintentional fertilization and loss of terrestrial biodiversity.
Many of the coastal ecosystems receiving increased nitrogen loadings are nitrogen-
limited, leading to algal blooms and a decline in the quality of surface and ground waters.
Reactive nitrogen can also alter the balance of greenhouse gases, enhance tropospheric
ozone, decrease stratospheric ozone, increase soil acidification, and stimulate the
formation of secondary particulate matter in the atmosphere.
To prevent these things from happening, we should focus on reducing the creation of
reactive nitrogen, increasing the efficiency with which it is used, or convert it back to
atmospheric di-nitrogen.
A positive consequence of the Haber-Bosch process may be the increase in the amount of
carbon sequestered in non-agricultural ecosystems, due to an increase in atmospheric
nitrogen deposition.

The Next Century of Haber-Bosch
We predict nitrogen demand on the basis of 4 storylines that reflect economic,
demographic, and technological developments.
The A1 storyline assumes a world of very rapid economic growth, a global population
that peaks mid-century, and rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies.
The B1 storyline describes a convergent world, with the same global population as A1,
but with more rapid changes in economic structures towards a service and information
economy.
The B2 storyline describes a world with intermediate population and economic growth,
emphasizing local solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability.
The A2 storyline describes a very heterogeneous world with high population growth,
slow economic development, and slow technological change.
The following 5 parameters are the main drivers of the estimated trends in fertilizer use:
1) Population growth is the main driver behind the increase in fertilizer use. It is
suggested that global fertility rates will decrease leading to a population growth halt.
2) The potential for increasing yield per hectare is large, and could allow food output to
keep pace with population increases, without requiring an increase in cropping area.
Also, fertilizer use is expected to become more efficient.
3) Further demand on agriculture may be posed by bio-fuel production, calling an
expansion of cop land as well as an increase in nitrogen demand.
4) Large parts of the world populations are deprived of valuable animal protein. We
assume that food equity will increase worldwide meat consumption to the level
observed in developing countries. Increased meat production will lead to increased
nitrogen usage.
5) We assume that human diets will be optimized to improve nitrogen-conversion
efficiency in the production cycle.
With these in mind, it is projected that we will need a 2-3 fold increase in nitrogen
fertilizers by the 2
nd
half of the 21
st
century. It is expected that increase in efficiency will
lead to us being able to meet this demand.

The Future Nitrogen Economy
Our society, currently, is a nitrogen-based economy. Though nitrogen is not available to
all parts of the world.
There is the possibility that the unintended environmental consequences will not be
reduced over the coming decades. The driving factors suggest that the need for nitrogen
will increase.
In the worst case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet, with
polluted air, reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even more
perturbed greenhouse-gas balance.
Global environmental sustainability must surely be the main driver for future innovation.