Haber too held Robert in high regard, for later he was fulsome in his praise,
such as at the Hurter Memorial Lecture given before Robert’s own countrymen at Liverpool University on Wednesday 26 November 1913 where he
described events leading to the synthesis of ammonia, and then again in his
Nobel acceptance speech on 02 June 1920.
12 Both of these are expanded in
later chapters.
13 We know too that Robert’s enthusiasm for his task translated
to ‘running the extra mile’. Many years later in 1966, Paul Krassa, Haber’s
student between 1906 and 1909 and a friend of Robert, describes
14 how he
worked in the private workshop in Karlsruhe during the holidays, manufacturing the ‘special valves’ which could control the flow of gases and tolerate
the high pressures. One other aspect also emerges regarding the activity in the
Karlsruhe laboratory at the time, in that at least one of the catalysts (uranium), was prepared for use by breaking up the commercial metal ‘with a
hammer!
15 Today of course, ‘Health and Safety’ would have stern words
regarding the practice, but it seemed to have had no ill effects, Robert at least
living to the ripe old age of 92, but these anecdotes seem to be all we have at a
day-to-day level. From a technical point of view however we know rather
more and so the story of synthetic ammonia at Karlsruhe begins here, but our
understanding of Kirchenbauer’s contribution is limited to his apparent
construction of a ‘special joint’ which was used ‘wherever possible in the
apparatus …’
15 and which was later successfully patented in his name.
16
8.2 The Technical Realisation of Synthetic
Ammonia
At the time, ammonia in the form of 25% commercial ammonium sulphate
possessed a value of 89 Pf. kg
−1 (9.5 cents lb
−1 ), whilst the combined
nitrogen and hydrogen from which it was composed was valued at 20 Pf. kg
−1
(2.14 cents lb
−1 of ammonia).
15 In British terms at the time, this amounted
to the fact that the cost of manufacturing ammonium sulphate from synthetic
ammonia came to just £2. 6s. 6d per ton,
17 and of course the plant could be
built anywhere, not just where cheap electricity was available. By comparison,
ammonium sulfate from the cyanamide process cost twice as much per ton.
17
The economics of ammonia production were therefore compelling, but the
cost of the raw material was far from negligible. Nitrogen of course was
available in ‘inexhaustible’ quantities from the liquefaction of air (the ‘Linde
process’), but also from the action of air and ‘producer gas’ on heated copper,
and as a by-product in the manufacture of ‘formic’ (methanoic) acid from
160
D. Sheppard
such as at the Hurter Memorial Lecture given before Robert’s own countrymen at Liverpool University on Wednesday 26 November 1913 where he
described events leading to the synthesis of ammonia, and then again in his
Nobel acceptance speech on 02 June 1920.
12 Both of these are expanded in
later chapters.
13 We know too that Robert’s enthusiasm for his task translated
to ‘running the extra mile’. Many years later in 1966, Paul Krassa, Haber’s
student between 1906 and 1909 and a friend of Robert, describes
14 how he
worked in the private workshop in Karlsruhe during the holidays, manufacturing the ‘special valves’ which could control the flow of gases and tolerate
the high pressures. One other aspect also emerges regarding the activity in the
Karlsruhe laboratory at the time, in that at least one of the catalysts (uranium), was prepared for use by breaking up the commercial metal ‘with a
hammer!
15 Today of course, ‘Health and Safety’ would have stern words
regarding the practice, but it seemed to have had no ill effects, Robert at least
living to the ripe old age of 92, but these anecdotes seem to be all we have at a
day-to-day level. From a technical point of view however we know rather
more and so the story of synthetic ammonia at Karlsruhe begins here, but our
understanding of Kirchenbauer’s contribution is limited to his apparent
construction of a ‘special joint’ which was used ‘wherever possible in the
apparatus …’
15 and which was later successfully patented in his name.
16
8.2 The Technical Realisation of Synthetic
Ammonia
At the time, ammonia in the form of 25% commercial ammonium sulphate
possessed a value of 89 Pf. kg
−1 (9.5 cents lb
−1 ), whilst the combined
nitrogen and hydrogen from which it was composed was valued at 20 Pf. kg
−1
(2.14 cents lb
−1 of ammonia).
15 In British terms at the time, this amounted
to the fact that the cost of manufacturing ammonium sulphate from synthetic
ammonia came to just £2. 6s. 6d per ton,
17 and of course the plant could be
built anywhere, not just where cheap electricity was available. By comparison,
ammonium sulfate from the cyanamide process cost twice as much per ton.
17
The economics of ammonia production were therefore compelling, but the
cost of the raw material was far from negligible. Nitrogen of course was
available in ‘inexhaustible’ quantities from the liquefaction of air (the ‘Linde
process’), but also from the action of air and ‘producer gas’ on heated copper,
and as a by-product in the manufacture of ‘formic’ (methanoic) acid from
160
D. Sheppard