Carl Bosch and the Haber-Bosch Fertilization Process

It fits that the grave of Carl Bosch in Heidelberg is overgrown with the competing green textures of the jumble of plants collecting at his tombstone. Plants were something Bosch understood more than most people — and that, combined with his engineering skills, got him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1931. A just reward, considering his work developed modern fertilizer production, which today delivers about a third of the world’s food supply.

You read that right: hygiene, vaccinations, antibiotics, and the Haber-Bosch fertilization process are the reasons the world’s lifespans have increased so dramatically (along with the population) in the last century.

Plants benefit from fertilizer because it helps them get the element Nitrogen, which they need for photosynthesis and their proteins. Nitrogen makes up 80% of the atmosphere, but it has to be chemically “fixed” for plants to use it, which is where fertilizer comes in.

Carl Bosh had learned from Fritz Haber’s work about the chemical processes that allowed Nitrogen to be changed for plant growth, but he was the chemical engineer to develop a machine that could do this on a large scale (it needed to be able to work with high pressures and temperatures).

In 1914 Bosch released the machine that enabled what those in the industry call the “Haber-Bosch Process” to occur. The Germans wanted to keep the technology a secret from other countries, but after World War I, Bosch helped the French obtain the process. After a lifetime of arduous work, Bosch started to critique the policies of Hitler, who became chancellor in 1933. As the Nazis responded by taking Bosch away from his high positions, the chemist and inventor grew depressed and developed alcoholism, dying in 1940.