The Haber ProcessStephanie Condori

Origination/BackgroundExplored by German chemists Fritz Haber and Walther Bosh in 1918.During a war with England, Germany was worried that they werent going to be able to have the necessary supplies during the war thus pushing these chemists in exploring a new way to produce ammonia for the use of explosives during WWI extending the war.This new discovery of the creation of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen is important because many chemist have attempted before but the process never succeeded until chemist Harber succeeded with the necessary high-pressure device. Main UsesSome of the main uses of ammonia is for agricultural reasons including fertilizers.Another use of ammonia is for explosives. EquationIt is an exothermic reaction The Le Chateliers Principle takes in affect with the Harber process by if theres an increase in the pressure the system will react by favoring the reaction which produces fewer molecules which will cause the pressure to lower again.N2 + 3 H2 2 NH3Favorable conditionsThe conditions that need to occur in order to have the Harber process take affect:Medium temperature ranging from 500 celsiusHigh pressure ~250 tamA catalyst (osmium) has to be included in the processConcernsSome concerns that arise with this process is the difficulty of getting large amounts of material as this high pressure.It is also very expensive to acquire Bibliographyhttp://www.chemguide.co.uk/physical/equilibria/haber.htmlhttp://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/~paulmay/haber/haber.htmhttp://www.ausetute.com.au/haberpro.htmlhttp://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/http://chemwiki.ucdavis.edu/Physical_Chemistry/Equilibria/Case_Studies/Haber_Process