Rise of Australia

Chapter 276 Synthetic Ammonia

After watching the tank performance, Arthur non-stop received Fritz Haber from Germany a few days later.

When it comes to Haber's name, people who are not very concerned about the chemical industry may feel unfamiliar.

But if the synthetic ammonia technology is mentioned, the popularity will be much higher.

Haber was born in a Jewish family in Brislau, Silesia, Germany, and was a famous German chemist.

Because last year, in 1909, he successfully produced ammonia from the air, he won the Victorian Chemistry Prize at the end of 1909, and received an invitation from Arthur to serve in the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research in Australasia.

The predecessor of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research was the Royal Society for Physical Research, whose chief president was Einstein.

The reason why the Physical Chemistry Research Association was established is naturally to attract top physical chemistry talents from Europe and even around the world.

So far, Arthur has invested more than ten million Australian dollars in the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research, and the achievements he has achieved are indeed not small.

Many famous physicists and chemists, including Einstein and Haber, were personally invited by Arthur to serve in the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research.

They only need to change their nationality to Australasia to receive an annual salary of at least A$[-], plus research funding of at least A$[-] per person per year.

In addition to these, all state-owned research laboratories and materials in Australasia, as well as research laboratories and some equipment in the university, are all provided to members of the Royal Institute of Physical and Chemical Research for free use.

To put it simply, as long as you become a member of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research, the research funds will be paid by the research association, and you will be paid a high salary, and even your family's food, clothing, housing and transportation will be arranged.

This is good news for some scientific workers who love scientific research but have little money. It is precisely because of these conditions that the Royal Australian Institute of Physical Chemistry has attracted more than 20 members, all of whom are Famous physical and chemical researchers from European and American countries are well-known experts with certain scientific research achievements and recognized abilities.

Haber's reputation in later generations is actually not very good, because Hubble served as the director of the chemical arsenal in World War I, responsible for the development and production of chlorine gas, mustard gas and other poisonous gases, and used them in the war, causing nearly a million deaths. human casualties.

This inhuman behavior was condemned by scientists from the United States, Britain, France and many other countries, which also caused Haber's reputation in the scientific research community to plummet.

However, these cannot hinder Haber's talent in chemistry in the slightest. The ammonia synthesis technology he developed is also very important to the national level.

Of course, when it comes to ammonia synthesis technology, the importance of ammonia has to be mentioned.

Ammonia is a colorless gas with a strong pungent odour.Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, easily soluble in water, and is an important raw material for the manufacture of nitric acid fertilizers and explosives.

The reason why ammonia synthesis technology is very important is that saltpeter, an important mineral for making gunpowder and agricultural fertilizer, has to be mentioned.

Because it can make gunpowder and is also an important source of agricultural fertilizers, the importance of saltpeter mines is unparalleled, and it is in the hands of very few countries.

At present, the world's largest slaked stone mine comes from the Pampas desert area of ​​Chile. Even in later generations, it is also the world's largest saltpeter mining area and saltpeter export place.

A war broke out between several countries around this saltpeter mine and Chile, but in the end it was successfully acquired by Chile.

With the support of the British, Chile successfully became the top three in South America, but the price was that the saltpeter mine was firmly occupied by the British, and the mining and sales of the saltpeter mine were basically decided by the British.

The monopoly of the British Empire on saltpeter mines caused dissatisfaction in many other countries.There is no way, saltpeter mines are very important to military industry and agriculture. Even if you can't get a share of the saltpeter mines occupied by the UK, you must find something to replace saltpeter mines to solve the raw materials for making gunpowder and fertilizer.

Among the many substitutes for saltpeter ore, ammonia is definitely one of the most important substitutes.

As early as 1795, there was an attempt to synthesize ammonia under normal atmospheric pressure, but it ultimately failed.Immediately afterwards, someone tried to test in multiple different atmospheric pressure environments, but the result was still a failure.

This status quo did not make any progress until the second half of the 19th century.The great progress of physics and chemistry has made people realize that the reaction of ammonia synthesis by nitrogen and hydrogen is reversible, and increasing the pressure will push the reaction to the direction of generating ammonia: increasing the temperature will move the reaction to the opposite direction, but the temperature is too low and the reaction will be reversed. The reaction rate is too small; the catalyst will have an important impact on the reaction.This actually provides theoretical guidance for the test of synthetic ammonia.

At that time, the authority of physical chemistry, Nernst of Germany, clearly pointed out that nitrogen and hydrogen can synthesize ammonia under high pressure conditions, and provided some experimental data.

The French chemist Le Chateli was the first to try to carry out the experiment of high-pressure synthesis of ammonia, but because the nitrogen-hydrogen mixture was mixed with oxygen, it caused an explosion, which made him give up this dangerous experiment.Haber, who has a good foundation in the field of physical chemistry research, is determined to overcome this daunting problem.

Haber first conducted a series of experiments to explore the optimal physical and chemical conditions for the synthesis of ammonia.

Some of the data he obtained in the experiment were different from Nernst’s. He did not blindly follow the authority, but relied on experiments to test, and finally confirmed that Nernst’s calculations were wrong.

With the assistance of a student from the United Kingdom, Luo Sennuo, Haber successfully designed a set of equipment suitable for high-pressure experiments and a process flow for synthesizing ammonia. This process is: blowing water vapor above the hot coke can obtain almost A mixture of equal volumes of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

The carbon monoxide in it further reacts with water vapor under the action of a catalyst to obtain carbon dioxide and hydrogen.Then the mixed gas is dissolved in water under a certain pressure, and the carbon dioxide is absorbed to produce relatively pure hydrogen.

Similarly, when water vapor is mixed with an appropriate amount of air and passed through the red hot charcoal, the oxygen and carbon in the air will form carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide and be absorbed and removed, thus obtaining the required nitrogen.

The mixed gas of nitrogen and hydrogen is synthesized into ammonia under the condition of high temperature and high pressure and the action of catalyst.

But what kind of high temperature and high pressure conditions are the best? What kind of catalyst is the best? This still needs to be explored with great effort.

With perseverance, after continuous experiments and calculations, Haber finally achieved encouraging results in 1909.

That is, under the conditions of a high temperature of 600°C, 200 atmospheric pressure and osmium as a catalyst, the synthetic ammonia with a yield of about 8% can be obtained. The conversion rate of 8% is not high, and of course it will affect the economic benefits of production.

Haber knew that the ammonia synthesis reaction could not achieve conversions as high as sulfuric acid production, where the conversion of the sulfur dioxide oxidation reaction was nearly 100%.What to do? Haber believes that if the reaction gas can be recycled under high pressure, and the ammonia generated by the reaction can be continuously separated from this cycle, the process is feasible.So he successfully designed the recycling process of raw gas.This is the Haber process for the synthesis of ammonia.

After the birth of ammonia synthesis technology, Haber's name was well-known throughout the European chemical community.

After successfully obtaining the patent of the Haber method for the synthesis of ammonia, Haber also received the news that he won the Victorian Chemistry Award that year.

In order to let his technological process go out of the laboratory and formally carry out industrial production, Haber made a decisive decision and decided to accept the invitation from Arthur to work in the Royal Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Australasia.

Of course, what really attracted Haber was that, in addition to a series of conditions of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research, Arthur also promised that as long as Haber was willing to hand over his process to Australasia, Australasia would do everything possible. Make every effort to quickly realize the industrial production of Haber's industrial process, build an ammonia plant and put it into production within five years.

At that time, the benefits will be shared with Haber, and Haber will be invited to serve as the chief vice president of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research.

The reason why Arthur is confident that a formal ammonia plant can be built is because in the original history, Haber’s idea of ​​synthetic ammonia was officially realized in 1913, and a synthetic ammonia plant with a daily output of 30 tons had already been built and put into production at that time .

The time for this was only about three years, and Haber only handed it over to the largest chemical company in Germany in history.

Arthur couldn't believe it, how far behind a chemical company could he be with the power of the whole country?
On the second day after Haber's arrival, Arthur announced the appointment of Haber's vice president at the Royal Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, and under the joint witness of Haber and Kent's butler, announced that the royal consortium invested 100 million Australian dollars for Construction of an ammonia plant using the Haber process.

Haber invested in his own ammonia synthesis process, accounting for 40.00% of the shares, and the royal consortium controlled by Arthur invested 100 million Australian dollars, accounting for 60.00% of the shares.

The site of the synthetic ammonia factory is located in the Leonora industrial base. The construction of the factory is not difficult, but the specific equipment and methods for the industrial production of synthetic ammonia technology have to wait for Haber and a series of members of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research. researched.

Arthur made a promise to this. As long as the Royal Institute of Physical Chemistry Research can solve the production of synthetic ammonia, the royal family will donate a research fund of 100 million Australian dollars to the Royal Institute of Physical Chemistry Research and give all members an additional [-] Australian dollars each. reward.

The research funding of 100 million Australian dollars will be shared equally among more than 20 experts from the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research, and each of them can get tens of thousands of Australian dollars.

In addition, as long as the production technology of synthetic ammonia can be solved, all members will receive an additional reward of [-] Australian dollars each, which is their salary for four years, and no one will refuse.

You must know that the salaries of members of the Australasian Royal Institute of Physical and Chemical Research are definitely not bad, and they are basically at the upper-middle level in Europe.

In addition, Arthur is generous, as long as there are major research results, he will be rewarded, so the actual income of these members is even higher than that of most experts in Europe. In addition to the free trial laboratory and the annual fixed research funds, This is why experts are willing to change their nationality to come to Australasia.

After handing over the problem of industrialized production of synthetic ammonia to the Royal Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, and letting Haber pay attention to the construction of the synthetic ammonia plant, Arthur was relieved.

In fact, in addition to synthetic ammonia, Australasia is also attaching great importance to chemical industry.

The newly established chemical plants in the Leonora industrial base have basically enjoyed Australasia's strong support for the chemical industry.

In addition to additional tax incentives, the royal consortium and the government have also provided double loans to these chemical industries to ensure that the chemical industry has sufficient funds for development.

At present, the tax paid by general industry is about 11.00%, while the tax paid by the chemical industry is only [-]%.

Moreover, these chemical plants can occasionally receive free help from members of the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research. Of course, if funds are sufficient, these members can also be directly hired as consultants.

In addition to these, the current Australasian government has also given greater support to the chemical engineering majors of various universities.

Not only the number of people enrolled in chemical engineering has increased, but also more reductions in tuition and other miscellaneous fees for college students applying for chemical engineering majors, as well as more scholarships and benefits, in order to cultivate more talents for the chemical industry talent.

At present, the most powerful in the chemical industry should be the National University of Australasia and the University of Auckland.

The chemical engineering major of Australasian National University currently has an annual enrollment of up to 400 people, and the chemical engineering major of the University of Auckland has an annual enrollment of 200 people.

Coupled with the large or small chemical majors of other universities, the chemical industry in Australasia can also train at least [-] college students every year, which can be regarded as able to make up for the shortage of talents in the chemical industry.

Of course, as far as top talents in chemistry are concerned, Australasia currently has no way to cultivate them by itself, and can only rely on hiring from Europe and the United States.

Of course, most of the time they are hired from Europe.After all, education in Europe is already very popular, and all kinds of talents are also very rich, so it is easier to recruit them.

Countries like the United States, although the economy is already very developed, but education is not as popular as in Europe.

Even the reason why the United States rose in later generations was because it attracted a large number of European talents in World War I and World War II.

Now if you want to attract talents from the United States, the first is that these talents are highly valued by the U.S. government, and the second is that the talents of these talents may not be comparable to those in Europe.

With the current good relationship between Australasia and Germany, it is relatively easy for Australasia to invite some chemical experts from Germany.

So far, Australasia has hired more than 40 well-known experts from Europe, among which the talents are relatively outstanding, and basically all of them have entered the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research.

Under Arthur's arrangement, the remaining less well-known talents have basically entered the chemical engineering majors of major universities, and cultivated more mainstay talents in the chemical industry in Australasia.

Although the chemical industry is both beneficial and harmful to human society, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, and it is also very important to the development of the country.

Under the various measures to develop the chemical industry in Australasia, major factories in the chemical industry have sprung up like bamboo shoots, and talents in the chemical industry are gradually accumulating.

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(End of this chapter)