Written by Brian S. (KIS '19)
━━ August 12th, 2018 ━━
The Greatest Invention of Mankind
When you think of the greatest invention ever created by mankind, what do you think of? The wheel? The light bulb? The computer? All of these are great candidates for the greatest invention, but there is one invention that was crucial to the development of mankind. Without this invention, many of us would not even be here right now. It is likely that you haven’t heard of this invention before. Albeit, it is not the invention of a physical item. Instead, this inventions was the creation of a method. This invention is the Haber Process.
Ever since the beginning of farming, humans have realized that we are unable to reuse the same land over and over again and yield the same amount of results. Every time we reuse the same plot of land, the yield of the crops diminish. No matter how perfect the conditions are, the yields can never compare to the first.
Humans, after testing many different ways to circumvent this problem, have found that there were a few solutions to this. One solution was to rotate crops on the same plot of land, so that every other year used some sort of bean plant. So, if strawberries were planted in one year, the next year, beans would be planted, like kidney beans. Another solution was to add dung to the soil. Although these seem like different solutions to the same problem, they are essentially doing the same thing: adding fixed nitrates back into the soil.
Legumes (beans) have an interesting property to them. In their roots, legumes have a unique bacteria that takes nitrogen from the atmosphere, N2, and turns it into ammonia, NH3. A similar process occurs within animals, and their dung contains ammonia. The reason that this is so important is because plants are unable to fix nitrogen on their own. Although nitrogen is the most abundant gas in the atmosphere, it is difficult to be obtained due to its structure. So, plants that are lacking in nitrogen have difficulty growing, as nitrogen is an essential element for growth. However, when N2 changes into NH3, the nitrogen in ammonia is able to be used by plants. This process is known as nitrogen fixation.
Equipped with the ability to make farm plots last longer, humans continued to farm. However, during the 20th century, scientists began to realize that this cannot be kept up. Simply put, there just isn’t enough nitrogen and food to go around and feed every mouth. We need a different way of making sure that the soil gets enough nitrogen. Faced with this problem, a scientists, Fritz Haber, developed a process that could be used to take air and convert the N2 into NH3. He created the first part of a process called the Haber-Bosch Process.
Next, another scientist, Carl Bosch, took Haber’s part of the process and refined it so that it could be mass produced. The issue that Bosch was faced with was that the process took immense amounts of pressure and heat in order to create a single drop of ammonia. The process just wasn’t fast enough. So, Bosch was tasked with increasing the reaction speed of the ammonia synthesizing reaction. After much trials and tribulation, Bosch came across the perfect metal to use as the catalyst: an iron alloy.
With this invention, the Haber-Bosch Process became a reality. Fixed nitrogen is being produced at record rates. Enough ammonia is getting around to farms all around America, and is making enough food to support the growing population. Without the creation of this process, you, me, and everyone else living on this world may not have had a chance to live.
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