Petroleum from Coal: A Century of Synthesis (History of Modern Science, 5)

Petroleum from Coal: a Century of Synthesis provides a global and comparative history of the twentieth-century coal-to-petroleum conversion processes. It examines the invention and development of the Bergius and Fischer-Tropsch processes; Germany's industrialization of the processes; and their global transfer. Petroleum from Coal shows why and how Friedrich Bergius and Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch in 1913-26 invented and developed synthetic fuel processes; explains why and how Matthias Pier at BASF- IG Farben and Otto Roelen at Ruhrchemie successfully industrialized the syntheses during the Nazi-World War II years; and analyzes the pre- and post-World War II vicissitudes of the synthetic fuel industry. The research of Germany’s scientists in the 1920s-40s made them world leaders in synthetic fuel studies. Information on the synthetic fuel processes has come from the Allied teams who went to Germany and Japan during World War II’s closing months and from British, American, and Canadian synthetic fuel investigations. Contents Preface Permission Acknowledgements Illustrations and Tables Abbreviations Chapter 1. Overview of the Synthetic Fuel Industry Chapter 2. Friedrich Bergius, Franz Fischer and Hans Tropsch: The Rise of the German Synthetic Fuel Industry Chapter 3. Germany's Synthetic Fuel Industry 1927–45 Chapter 4. From Birmingham to Billingham: High-Pressure Coal Hydrogenation in Great Britain Chapter 5. Synthetic Fuel Production in Prewar and World War II Japan: A Study in Technological Failure Chapter 6. Canada's Mines Branch and Its Synthetic Fuel Program for Energy Independence Chapter 7. The United States Bureau of Mines' Synthetic Fuel Program 1920s–50s: German Connections and American Advances Chapter 8. Epilogue: Post-World War II Synthetic Fuel Development and the Emergence of Environmental Concerns Bibliography Index