11.1 Early Progress at the BASF
With Haber and Robert progressing their careers in Berlin, Carl Bosch and
his team were moving ahead with the industrialisation of the ammonia
synthesis at the BASF. Very early on, Bosch had realised that there were three
key problems to be addressed viz, the discovery of an inexpensive, effective
and durable catalyst, an economic supply of the feedstock gases of hydrogen
and nitrogen, and the construction of the high-pressure converters. These
three problems were tackled in parallel but they were to prove of varying
complexity, the design of the converters being by far the most difficult.
The BASF had early success with regard to their first key problem. Their
letter to Haber in January 1910 (Chap. 10) had reported ‘a partial conclusion’
to the ammonia synthesis, in that their search for an effective, inexpensive
catalyst was already over. Even by September 1909 the BASF had made
significant progress in the matter. They had tooled up a workshop fully
adapted to make the ‘pilot’ apparatus suitable for the prolonged laboratory
experimentation necessary for the discovery of a durable catalyst. Their
starting point had been the original Haber – Le Rossignol ‘furnace’, but they
soon found it far too fragile for an industrial environment. As a result, it was
completely redesigned, retaining its essence but implemented in a much more
robust fashion, and incorporating a removable ‘cartridge’ capable of containing about 2 g of material which allowed different catalytic candidates to
be examined on a ‘production line’ basis. This task was appointed to Alwin
Mittasch, Hans Wolf and George Stern. Twenty-four of these laboratory
converters were made and they were in continuous service ‘around the clock’
for years, eventually (by 1922) examining over 20,000 ‘runs’ of more than
4000 separate catalytic candidates (Figs. 11.1, 11.2).
1
During September 1909 this investigation was in its infancy, but osmium
and uranium were already causing the BASF some concern. Osmium it
seemed, was easily converted to the volatile tetroxide by the presence of air—
almost impossible to exclude in a high-pressure apparatus on an industrial
scale—whilst uranium’s sensitivity to both air and water eventually meant
that there was no form in which it could be used to lay the foundations of an
industrial process.
1
Every pure metal with a known catalytic property at the time was subsequently examined by the BASF, but compounds and mixtures of compounds—
especially those involving iron—were to reveal themselves as unexpectedly
suitable candidates. On 06 November 1909 for example, one of Wolf’s samples
of impure magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) from the Gällivare mines
2 in northern Sweden
212
D. Sheppard
With Haber and Robert progressing their careers in Berlin, Carl Bosch and
his team were moving ahead with the industrialisation of the ammonia
synthesis at the BASF. Very early on, Bosch had realised that there were three
key problems to be addressed viz, the discovery of an inexpensive, effective
and durable catalyst, an economic supply of the feedstock gases of hydrogen
and nitrogen, and the construction of the high-pressure converters. These
three problems were tackled in parallel but they were to prove of varying
complexity, the design of the converters being by far the most difficult.
The BASF had early success with regard to their first key problem. Their
letter to Haber in January 1910 (Chap. 10) had reported ‘a partial conclusion’
to the ammonia synthesis, in that their search for an effective, inexpensive
catalyst was already over. Even by September 1909 the BASF had made
significant progress in the matter. They had tooled up a workshop fully
adapted to make the ‘pilot’ apparatus suitable for the prolonged laboratory
experimentation necessary for the discovery of a durable catalyst. Their
starting point had been the original Haber – Le Rossignol ‘furnace’, but they
soon found it far too fragile for an industrial environment. As a result, it was
completely redesigned, retaining its essence but implemented in a much more
robust fashion, and incorporating a removable ‘cartridge’ capable of containing about 2 g of material which allowed different catalytic candidates to
be examined on a ‘production line’ basis. This task was appointed to Alwin
Mittasch, Hans Wolf and George Stern. Twenty-four of these laboratory
converters were made and they were in continuous service ‘around the clock’
for years, eventually (by 1922) examining over 20,000 ‘runs’ of more than
4000 separate catalytic candidates (Figs. 11.1, 11.2).
1
During September 1909 this investigation was in its infancy, but osmium
and uranium were already causing the BASF some concern. Osmium it
seemed, was easily converted to the volatile tetroxide by the presence of air—
almost impossible to exclude in a high-pressure apparatus on an industrial
scale—whilst uranium’s sensitivity to both air and water eventually meant
that there was no form in which it could be used to lay the foundations of an
industrial process.
1
Every pure metal with a known catalytic property at the time was subsequently examined by the BASF, but compounds and mixtures of compounds—
especially those involving iron—were to reveal themselves as unexpectedly
suitable candidates. On 06 November 1909 for example, one of Wolf’s samples
of impure magnetite (Fe 3 O 4 ) from the Gällivare mines
2 in northern Sweden
212
D. Sheppard