The Synthetic Nitrogen Industry in World War I: Its Emergence and Expansion (SpringerBriefs in Molecular Science)

This concise brief describes how the demands of World War I, often referred to as the Chemists’ War, led to the rapid emergence of a new key industry based on fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Then, as now, nitrogen products, including nitric acid, and nitrates, were essential for both fertilizers and in the manufacture of modern explosives. During the first decade of the twentieth century, this stimulated research into and application of novel processes. This book illustrates how from late 1914 the relations and developments in the first modern military-industrial complex enabled the great capital expenditures and technological advances that accelerated massive expansion, particularly of the BASF Haber-Bosch high-pressure process, that determined the direction of the post-war chemical industry. Front Matter....Pages i-ix Introduction....Pages 1-15 Electric Arcs, Cyanamide, Carl Bosch and Fritz Haber....Pages 17-72 The Great War....Pages 73-83 Concentrated Nitric Acid and Expansion of the Nitrogen Industry in Germany, France and Britain....Pages 85-110 Nobel Prizes and New Technologies....Pages 111-143 Conclusion: A Legacy of Synthetic Nitrogen....Pages 145-151 Back Matter....Pages 153-163