3 Germany and ‘Fixation’
79
3.1
Iquiqui, Tocopilla and Taltal
79
3.2
Haber’s Introduction to the Nitrogen Problem
82
3.3
Early Commercial Progress in Nitrogen Fixation
84
3.4
Early Academic Progress Fixation by Synthesis: The
Combination of Elemental Nitrogen and Hydrogen
87
3.5
But Finally… What of Preussen?
91
4 The Golden Chemist
97
4.1
Introduction
98
4.2
Travers’ Liquefiers
98
4.3
Beyond Engineering …
101
5 Hamburg, 12 May 1907
109
5.1
Approaching the Ammonia Equilibrium
109
5.2
Nernst’s Presentation
110
5.3
So How Should Haber Respond?
114
5.3.1 On the Ammonia Equilibrium
115
5.4
The Discussion
120
6 Bestimmung Des Ammoniakgleichgewichtes Unter
Druck
129
6.1
The Legacy of Hamburg
129
6.2
Well Firstly …
131
6.3
Then Secondly …
133
6.4
So Thirdly
137
6.5
Well Finally
139
6.6
The Legacy of ‘Bestimmung …’
141
7 Taking Care of Business
145
7.1
Money
145
7.2
The Contracts with BASF
147
7.3
Robert’s Contract. The Corn Fields or the Killing
Fields?
150
7.4
Haber’s Dilemma
152
8 The Big Fix …
157
8.1
The Secret Years
157
8.2
The Technical Realisation of Synthetic Ammonia
160
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Contents