The Synthetic Nitrogen Industry in World War I

Its Emergence and Expansion
1. Auflage 2015
ISBN: 978-3-319-19356-4
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 163 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 235 mm, Gewicht: 2759 g

Reihe: History of Chemistry

This concise brief describes how the demands of World War I, often referred to as the Chemists’ War, led to the rapid emergence of a new key industry based on fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. Then, as now, nitrogen products, including nitric acid, and nitrates, were essential for both fertilizers and in the manufacture of modern explosives. During the first decade of the twentieth century, this stimulated research into and application of novel processes. This book illustrates how from late 1914 the relations and developments in the first modern military-industrial complex enabled the great capital expenditures and technological advances that accelerated massive expansion, particularly of the BASF Haber-Bosch high-pressure process, that determined the direction of the post-war chemical industry.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

S. Travis, Anthony

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Militärgeschichte
• Naturwissenschaften Chemie Chemie Allgemein Geschichte der Chemie
• Technische Wissenschaften Technik Allgemein Technikgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftsgeschichte
• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Fertigungsindustrie Chemische Industrie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Wirtschaftsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction.- Electric Arcs, Cyanamide, Carl Bosch, and Fritz Haber.- The Great War.- Concentrated Nitric Acid and Expansion of the Nitrogen Industry in Germany, France and Britain.- Nobel Prizes and New Technologies.- Conclusion: A Legacy of Synthetic Nitrogen.

Über Autor(innen)

Anthony S. Travis, PhD, is deputy director of Sidney M. Edelstein Center for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology and Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has published extensively on the history of chemical technology in the 19th and 20th centuries. Currently he is undertaking research into the life of the British chemist Raphael Meldola, a close friend of Heinrich Caro and other leading German chemists, as well as of Charles Darwin. He is recipient of the American Chemical Society's History of Chemistry Division 2007 Edelstein Award in the history of chemistry.