Main process of ammonia production The Haber process,[1] also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today.[2][3] It is named after its inventors, the German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, who developed it in the first decade of the 20th century. The process converts atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) to ammonia (NH 3 ) by a reaction with hydrogen (H 2 ) using a metal catalyst under high temperatures and pressures: N 2 + 3 H 2 ⟶ 2 NH 3 Δ H ∘ = − 91.8 kJ/mol {\displaystyle {\ce {N2 + 3 H2 -> 2 NH3}}\quad \Delta H^{\circ }=-91.8~{\text{kJ/mol}}} Before the development of the Haber process, ammonia had been difficult to produce on an industrial scale,[4][5][6] with early methods such as the Birkeland–Eyde process and Frank–Caro process all being highly inefficient. During World War I, the Haber process provided Germany with a source of ammonia for the production of explosives, compensating for the Allied Powers' trade blockade on Chilean saltpeter. History [ edit ] During the 19th century, the demand for nitrates and ammonia for use as fertilizers and industrial feedstocks had been steadily increasing. The main source was mining niter deposits and guano from tropical islands.[7] At the beginning of the 20th century it was being predicted that these reserves could not satisfy future demands,[8] and research into new potential sources of ammonia became more important. Although atmospheric nitrogen (N 2 ) is abundant, comprising ~78% of the air, it is exceptionally stable and does not readily react with other chemicals. Converting N 2 into ammonia posed a challenge for chemists globally. Haber, with his assistant Robert Le Rossignol, developed the high-pressure devices and catalysts needed to demonstrate the Haber process at laboratory scale.[9][10] They demonstrated their process in the summer of 1909 by producing ammonia from air, drop by drop, at the rate of…