Fritz Haber

File:Fritz Haber.png

Fritz Haber in 1918.

Fritz Haber (9 December, 1868 – 29 January, 1934) was a German chemist and Nobel lauriate who developed a commercially viable process for turning atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, and by doing so, making this economical source of nitrogen available for the manufacture of fertilizers and explosives. He headed the German effort during World War I to manufiacture munitions that delivered poisonous gas to enemy troops, thus ushering in the modern age of chemical warfare.

Biography

He was born in Breslau, Germany (now Wrocław, Poland) to Siegfried and Paula Haber. His mother died in childbirth. His father was a prominent chemicals merchant in the town. He attended St. Elizabeth's School in Breslau in his early years, during which time he developed an interest in chemistry. From 1886 until 1891 he studied at the University of Heidelberg under Robert Bunsen, at the University of Berlin in the group of A. W. Hofmann, and at the Technical College of Charlottenburg (today the Technical University of Berlin) under Carl Liebermann. Before starting his own academic career he worked at his father's chemical business and in the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich with Georg Lunge.

Nobel Prize

For a period he was uncertain about the direction of his career, but worked for a short time with Ludig Knorr at the University of Jena, with whom he published some early research. In 1894, he accepted an assistantship under Hans Bunte at the Karlsruhe. In 1896, he was promoted to assistant professor after the publication of his thesis on the oxidation of hydrocarbons. In 1898 he was granted an associate professorship, and in the same year published a text on electrochemistry. He married in 1901 Clara Immerwahr, herself a chemist who had aspirations of accomplishment in the field. In 1906, Haber was made full professor of chemisry and electrochemistry, and director of an institute devoted to the study of these subjects. He remained there until 1911, when he assumed the directorship of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry in Berlin, where he remained for 22 years.

Haber devoted much of his time to research in electrochemistry. He invented a glass electrode, and studied energy loss in steam engines and electric motors. He also elucidated the structure of the flame of a bunsen burner, demonstrating the different reactions that occur in the flames core and in its outer shealth.

The work for which he is best known, however, the production of ammonia gas from atmospheric nitrogen, did not begin until 1905. In that year, he published a book on the thermodynamics of gases that contained information on the production of ammonia at temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees centigrade, using iron as a catalyst. He improved this process, in collaboration with Robert Le Rossignol, by having the reaction occur at pressures of 150 to 200 atmospheres, and at a more practical temperature of 500 degrees centigrade, in the presence of the element osmium. In 1909, Haber and Rossignol demonstrated this process to BASF, the chemical manufacturer. the company was persuaded of its feasibility, and assigned two scientists, Carl Bosch and Alwin Mittasch, to make improvements. for the catalyst, they replaced osmium by a less expensive mixture of iron and other compounds. By 1913, industrial facilities were producing several tons of ammonia a day using Haber's methods.

Haber's methods were perfected just before Germany went to war with neighboring European countries and the United States. Ammonia could be used as a starting material for the production of high-yield explosives, and Germany's war effort was considerably enhanced by its ability to produce armaments from atmospheric nitrogen, particularly when supplies of mineral nitrates that had been depended on for the same purpose were cut off due to the blockade of German shipping by the Allied forces.

Haber at this time became engaged in the production of chemical weapons, and supervised the use of chlorine gas against Germany's adversaries, even though most nations, including Germany herself, had signed a treaty banning the arming of projectiles with poison gas. the Germans circumvented this restriction by using canisters on the ground, and relying on the wind to spread the gas. The use of these weapons had only mixed success, and was copied by others in the conflict.

In 1915, Haber's wife, Clara, who had expressed dissatisfaction with her marriage and her career, committed suicide. This did not dampen Haber's enthusiasm for the war effort.In his studies of the effects of poison gas, Haber noted that exposure to a low concentration of a poisonous gas for a long time often had the same effect (death) as exposure to a high concentration for a short time. He formulated a simple mathematical relationship between the gas concentration and the necessary exposure time. This relationship became known as Haber's rule.

Haber defended gas warfare against accusations that it was inhumane, saying that death was death, by whatever means it was inflicted.

In 1917, Haber remarried, to Charlotte Nathan, and the couple had two children before the marriage ended in divorce in 1927.

Immediately after the war, Haber received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on the synthesis of Ammonia. The Haber-Bosch process was a milestone in industrial chemistry, because it divorced the production of nitrogen products, such as fertilizer, explosives and chemical feedstocks, from natural deposits, especially sodium nitrate (caliche), of which Chile was a major producer.

Haber made efforts to reintegrate the work of German scientists into the world community in the aftermath of World War II. He was able to obtain funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for some of these German scientists. For six years beginning in 1920, he devoted himself to extracting gold from sea water to help Germany pay back its war debts. He found, however, that the percentage of gold was too small to make the process economically feasible. During the same decade, scientists working at his institute developed the cyanide gas formulation Zyklon B, which was used as an insecticide, especially as a fumigant in grain stores, and also later as a tool of mass execution in the German death camps of World War II.

Some believe that Haber continued research into chemical armaments after World War I, through an intermediary. As he and other German scientists had been accused of war crimes, he had to exercise caution regarding the production of weaponry.

Post-War

As Adolph Hitler tightened his grip over Germany and began his crusade against the world's Jewish population, Haber began to feel increasing pressure to step down from his position as director of the institute. He was prohibited from hiring Jewish staff, a restriction that finally sealed his break with the German government. He remarked in 1933, his last year in Germany: "I fight with ebbing strength against my four enemies: insomnia, the economic claims of my divorced wife, my lack of confidence in the future, and awareness of the grave mistakes I have committed..."

Haber left Germany, having secured a position in Cambridge, England, but upon his arrival found that British scientists still harbored hostility toward him for his work during World War I. He then received an invitation to work in Palestine, but his lealth forced him to head for Switzerland to recouperate. On his way, he died of heart failure, aged 65, in a hotel in Basel, on his way to a convalescent retreat in Switzerland.

Haber's immediate family also left Germany. His second wife, Charlotte, with their two children, settled in England. Haber's son, Hermann, from his first marriage emigrated to the United States during World War II. He committed suicide in 1946. Members of Haber's extended family are said to have died in German concentration camps.

Dramatic treatment

A fictional portrait of Haber's life, and in particular his longtime relationship with Albert Einstein, appears in Vern Thiessen's 2003 play, Einstein's Gift. Thiessen portrays Haber as a tragic figure who strives unsuccessfully throughout his life to evade both his Jewish background and the moral implications of his scientific contributions.

See also

• Ammonia
• Nazism
• World War I

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Daniel Charles, Master mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare (New York: Ecco, 2005), ISBN 0-06-056272-2.
• Dietrich Stoltzenberg, Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew: A Biography (Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2005), ISBN 0-941901-24-6.
• Vaclav Smil, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production (2001) ISBN 0-262-19449-X

External links

• Nobel e-Museum - Biography of Fritz Haber
• Photographs of Fritz Haber's life
• A short biography of Fritz Haber, by Bretislav Friedrich
• Biographical Film about Fritz Haber

Nobel Prize in Chemistry: Laureates (1901-1925)

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