reputations and not at producing an application. And it did so by undisputedly establishing the most accurate profile of the ammonia equilibrium to
date, a profile which remains essentially the standard today. But even so, what
could that ‘bring to the table’? After all, the Hamburg meeting had already
given the whole scientific community all they needed to reasonably anticipate
the (ideal) behaviour of the equilibrium at various temperatures and pressures.
Experimentally determined equilibrium constants
8 were available from 700 to
1000 °C and using the integrated form of the van’t Hoff equation, these could
be extrapolated with confidence down to temperatures of 200 °C, or even
lower (as Haber and van Oordt had already done). Here, with ammonia now
forming a much larger percentage of the equilibrium mixture, there had to be
an adjustment in the expression for the partial pressure equilibrium constant.
But Haber, in his book ‘The Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions’
had already described K p under these circumstances, so that figures of the
type shown in note 9 would have been easily constructed by the two men—
and indeed by anyone else who was interested enough to bother.
9
And such was the fearsome reputation of the ammonia problem, that
Haber and Robert by restoring their reputations had only really confirmed
what everyone generally suspected ever since Nernst’s outburst .. the
ammonia synthesis was stubborn; at temperatures amenable to industrial
production catalysis was impossible, at higher temperatures yields were vanishingly small, so what if anything did this ‘exquisite’ paper really contribute
to the ammonia problem?
6.2 Well Firstly …
With complete confidence in the procedures for their Hamburg presentation,
Haber and Robert must have been puzzled by the fact that their figures were
so still much higher than Nernst’s—usually about 33% higher, (Table 6.5
later). The two men therefore decided to reproduce Nernst’s work, and in
doing so they showed that the reason for this was that Nernst’s equilibrium
was quite simply, wrong.
10 Those choosing to work on the ammonia synthesis
would naturally want to start from a conventionally accepted position, and in
this respect Haber and Robert claimed ‘Bestimmung …’ as ‘de rigueur’. The
paper therefore, did not simplify the problem, but it certainly set the standard
for subsequent work. Haber and Robert achieved this by showing that the
results they presented at 1 atm were entirely consistent with their new figures
at 30 atm. Continuing on from Hamburg, Robert’s experimental accuracy
and attention to detail was stunning; every avenue was explored and any
6 Bestimmung Des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes Unter Druck
131
date, a profile which remains essentially the standard today. But even so, what
could that ‘bring to the table’? After all, the Hamburg meeting had already
given the whole scientific community all they needed to reasonably anticipate
the (ideal) behaviour of the equilibrium at various temperatures and pressures.
Experimentally determined equilibrium constants
8 were available from 700 to
1000 °C and using the integrated form of the van’t Hoff equation, these could
be extrapolated with confidence down to temperatures of 200 °C, or even
lower (as Haber and van Oordt had already done). Here, with ammonia now
forming a much larger percentage of the equilibrium mixture, there had to be
an adjustment in the expression for the partial pressure equilibrium constant.
But Haber, in his book ‘The Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions’
had already described K p under these circumstances, so that figures of the
type shown in note 9 would have been easily constructed by the two men—
and indeed by anyone else who was interested enough to bother.
9
And such was the fearsome reputation of the ammonia problem, that
Haber and Robert by restoring their reputations had only really confirmed
what everyone generally suspected ever since Nernst’s outburst .. the
ammonia synthesis was stubborn; at temperatures amenable to industrial
production catalysis was impossible, at higher temperatures yields were vanishingly small, so what if anything did this ‘exquisite’ paper really contribute
to the ammonia problem?
6.2 Well Firstly …
With complete confidence in the procedures for their Hamburg presentation,
Haber and Robert must have been puzzled by the fact that their figures were
so still much higher than Nernst’s—usually about 33% higher, (Table 6.5
later). The two men therefore decided to reproduce Nernst’s work, and in
doing so they showed that the reason for this was that Nernst’s equilibrium
was quite simply, wrong.
10 Those choosing to work on the ammonia synthesis
would naturally want to start from a conventionally accepted position, and in
this respect Haber and Robert claimed ‘Bestimmung …’ as ‘de rigueur’. The
paper therefore, did not simplify the problem, but it certainly set the standard
for subsequent work. Haber and Robert achieved this by showing that the
results they presented at 1 atm were entirely consistent with their new figures
at 30 atm. Continuing on from Hamburg, Robert’s experimental accuracy
and attention to detail was stunning; every avenue was explored and any
6 Bestimmung Des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes Unter Druck
131