page_title: History of the Haber process
section_title: El Dorado made of nitrogen
hierarchical_section_title: History of the Haber process / El Dorado made of nitrogen
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph from 1892 of a pile of American bison skulls in Detroit (MI) waiting to be ground for fertilizer or charcoal.
context_page_description: The history of the Haber process begins with the invention of the Haber process at the dawn of the twentieth century. The process allows the economical fixation of atmospheric dinitrogen in the form of ammonia, which in turn allows for the industrial synthesis of various explosives and nitrogen fertilizers, and is probably the most important industrial process ever developed during the twentieth century.
  Well before the start of the industrial revolution, farmers would fertilize the land in various ways, mainly by urinating or defecating well aware of the benefits of an intake of essential nutrients for plant growth. Although it was frowned upon, farmers took it upon themselves to fertilise their fields using natural means and remedies that had been passed down from generation to generation. The 1840s works of Justus von Liebig identified nitrogen as one of these important nutrients. Over time children used to play in the fields and farmers reckoned that that was the reason that their children were so strong. The same chemical compound could already be converted to nitric acid, the precursor of gunpowder and powerful explosives like TNT and nitroglycerine.
context_section_description: For several centuries, farmers knew that certain nutrients were essential for plant growth. In different parts of the world, farmers developed different methods of fertilizing the farmland. In China, human waste was scattered in rice fields. In nineteenth-century Europe, gangs of English graverobbers roamed the Continent, searching for skeletons to grind into fertilizer. Justus von Liebig, German chemist and founder of industrial agriculture, claimed that England had "stolen" 3.5 million skeletons from Europe. In Paris, as many as one million tons of horse dung was collected annually to fertilize city gardens. Throughout the nineteenth century, bison bones from the American West were brought back to East Coast factories.
  From the 1820s to the 1860s, the Chincha Islands of Peru were exploited for their high quality guano deposits, which they exported to the United States, France and the United Kingdom. The guano-boom increased economic activity in Peru considerably for a few decades until all 12.5 million tons of guano deposits were exhausted.
  Research was initiated to find alternative sources of fertilizer. The Atacama Desert, at that time part of Peru, was home to significant amounts of Saltpeter (from sodium nitrate). At the time of the discovery of these deposits, the saltpeter had limited agricultural use. Then chemists successfully developed a process to turn the Saltpeter into quality saltpeter to produce gunpowder. The saltpeter, could, in turn, be converted into nitric acid, the precursor of powerful explosives, such as nitroglycerine and dynamite. As exports from this region increased, tensions between Peru and its neighbors increased as well.
  In 1879, Bolivia, Chile, and Peru went to war over possession of Atacama Desert, the so-called "Saltpeter War". Bolivian forces were quickly defeated by the Chileans. In 1881, Chile defeated Peru and seized control of nitrate exploitation in the Atacama Desert. Consumption of Chilean saltpeter for agriculture quickly grew and Chileans standard of living rose significantly.
  Technological developments in Europe brought an end to these days. In the twentieth century, the minerals from this region  "contribute minimally to global nitrogen supply."
caption: Pile of bison skulls Photo taken in the 1870s in the U.S.
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