Name: Olivia Figueiredo

Grade: 9 2015-2016
Subject: Chemistry
Teacher: Mrs. Sonja de Beer

Is the change caused by chemical reactions always good?

Agriculture takes away nitrogen from the soil. So to keep up the yields, nitrogen
fertilizers must be used. The main issue that prevented the scientists of making
fertilizer is that all of the main nitrogen sources were vanishing. The main source
used to come from Guano, which is bird dropping from South American Islands.
After this resource became limited, the farmers turned to Saltpeter, KNo3
( potassium nitrate) which could be found mainly on the mines in Chile. After
many researches, scientists predicted at the beginning of the 20th Century, that
Saltpeter would also be limited by 1940, and it would lead to worldwide
starvation of 1/3 of mankind. Since all the sources that they got the nitrogen
were being depleted, the scientists had their hands tied, as they now had to find
another formula. After a lot of research Fritz Haber was finally able to develop
this formula. What we call today the Haber Process includes chemicals that
takes nitrogen from the air under high pressure and high temperature, and mixes
the element with hydrogen to make ammonia. Unfortunately with this idea came
a problem, which is that the plants were not able to use the direct atmospheric
nitrogen. To solve this they needed to find a way to use this type of nitrogen in a
compound which could be made into a fertilizer. However, in order to
commercialize this product, the scientists needed to find the optimum pressure,
temperature and the right catalyst for the reaction to occur. The Haber process
discovered by Fitz Haber (a fanatic German patriot), is a combination of nitrogen
from the air with hydrogen that came mainly from natural gas(methane) into
ammonia. The reaction is reversible.

Ammonia is one of the most highly produced inorganic chemicals. Ammonia is

produced worldwide, in a numerous large-scale. A total of 131 million tonnes of
nitrogen (159 million tonnes of ammonia) was produced in 2010. China
contributed to 32.1% of the production worldwide. After china, india came next
with 8.9%, Russia with 7.9% and the United states with 6.3%. A minimum of 80%
of the ammonia produced every year is used for fertilizing agriculture crops. All
of this fertilizers is exactly what made it possible to feed our growing population
and prevented the massive starvation in 1940, as well as still feeds tons of
people today. Ammonia is also used for the production of plastics, fibers,
explosives, and nitric acid. After balancing the amount and product produced,
the Haber Process was found to be very effective. This is because even though

at the beginning only about 15% of the nitrogen becomes ammonia, the nitrogen
and hydrogen keep re-doing the process over and over again, until 98% of the
products become ammonia. This means that at the end, only 2% of waste is
produced, which is then released into the atmosphere.

A man who both saved and destroyed and an enormous number of lives. Around
1900, there were several issues going around Germany. The main problem that
everybody was starting to worry about was how to feed a growing population.
Everyone was worried that they would max out how much food the earth could
produce. Until the day that Haber made the most significant scientific break in
human history. He managed to discover how to produce ammonia, so basically
how to feed the world. His discovery earned him a nobel prize. (Radiolab) In my
perspective this price was well deserved. After a long time of researches, he was
able to save over 2 billion lives who would have other wise starved to death. Not
only that, but he also saved farmers jobs. Due to the bad soil, farmers were on
the edge of losing their jobs. So the invention of the Haber process saved tons of
jobs. On the other hand the Haber process was also used to fuel the World War
One by being used in explosive. This prolonged the war which caused many
additional problems such as diseases, deaths and extra war expenses.

Work Cited:
"How Do You Solve a Problem like Fritz Haber?" Radiolab. WNYC, n.d. Web. 08
Apr. 2016. <http://www.radiolab.org/story/180132-how-do-you-solve-problemfritz-haber/>.
Clark, Jim. "The Haber Process for the Manufacture of Ammonia." The Haber
Process for the Manufacture of Ammonia. N.p., Apr. 2013. Web. 08 Apr. 2016.
<http://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/equilibria/haber.html>.