After watching the tank show, Arthur met with Fritz Haber from Germany a few days later.

The name Haber may be unfamiliar to those who are not very interested in the chemical industry.

But when it comes to ammonia technology, it must be much more well-known.

Born into a Jewish family in Brislau, Silesia, Germany, Haber was a well-known German chemist.

He won the Victorian Prize in Chemistry at the end of 1909 for his success in producing ammonia from the air last year, 1909, and received a personal invitation from Arthur to work with the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry in Australasia.

The Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry was formerly known as the Royal Society for the Study of Physics, and its chief president was Albert Einstein.

The reason for the establishment of the Physical Chemistry Research Association is naturally to attract top physical chemistry talents from Europe and even around the world.

So far, Arthur has invested more than 10 million Australian dollars in the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry, and his achievements are indeed not small.

Many famous physicists and chemists, including Albert Einstein and Haber, were personally invited by Arthur to work with the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry.

They only need to change their nationality to Australasia and receive an annual salary of at least $5,000, plus research funding of at least $50,000 per person per year.

In addition to these, all of Australasia's state-owned laboratories and materials, as well as the university's laboratories and some equipment, are available free of charge to members of the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry.

To put it simply, as long as you become a member of the Royal Society for the Study of Physical and Chemistry, the research funds will be provided by the research association, and a high salary will be paid, and even the food, clothing, housing and transportation of the family will be arranged.

This is a good news for some scientists who love scientific research, but are shy in their pockets, and it is precisely because of these conditions that the Royal Australian Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry has attracted more than 20 members, all of whom are famous physical chemistry researchers from Europe and the United States, who are famous experts with certain scientific research achievements and recognized abilities.

Haber's reputation in later generations was actually not very good, because Hubble served as the director of the chemical arsenal in World War I, responsible for the development and production of chlorine, mustard gas and other poisonous gases, and used them in the war, causing nearly a million casualties.

This inhumane act was condemned by scientists from the United States, Britain, France and many other countries, and also caused Haber's reputation to plummet in the scientific research community.

But this did not stop Haber's talent in chemistry, and the technology he developed to synthesize ammonia is also important at the national level.

Of course, when it comes to ammonia synthesis technology, we have to mention the importance of ammonia.

Ammonia is a colorless gas with a strong pungent odor. Ammonia is a compound of nitrogen and hydrogen, which is highly soluble in water and is an important raw material for the manufacture of nitric acid fertilizers and explosives.

The reason why ammonia synthesis technology is very important has to mention saltpeter, an important mineral for making gunpowder and agricultural fertilizers.

Because it can make gunpowder and is also an important source of agricultural fertilizer, this makes saltpeter mine unparalleled in importance and is in the hands of very few countries.

At present, the world's largest smelter mine comes from the Pampas Desert region of Chile, which is the world's largest saltpeter mining area and saltpeter exporter even in later generations.

A war broke out with Chile over the saltpeter mines, but Chile succeeded in acquiring them.

With the support of the British, Chile successfully became the top three power in South America, but at the cost of the saltpeter mine being firmly occupied by the British, and the mining and sales of saltpeter ore were basically determined by the British.

The British Empire's monopoly on saltpeter mines led to discontent in many other countries. There was no way, saltpeter was very important for both military and agricultural purposes, and even if it could not get a piece of the saltpeter mines occupied by the British, it was necessary to find something to replace the saltpeter mines, and to solve the raw materials for making gunpowder and fertilizer.

Among the many alternatives to saltpeter mines, ammonia is definitely one of the most important alternatives.

As early as 1795, attempts were made to synthesize ammonia at conventional atmospheric pressure, but ultimately failed. Immediately afterward, another attempt was made to test the test in a number of different atmospheric pressure environments, but the results were still unsuccessful.

It was not until the second half of the 19th century that some progress was made in this situation. Tremendous advances in physics and chemistry have made it possible to realize that the reaction to produce ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen is reversible, and that increasing the pressure will push the reaction in the direction of ammonia formation: increasing the temperature will move the reaction in the opposite direction, but too low a temperature will make the reaction too small; The catalyst will have an important impact on the reaction. In fact, this provides theoretical guidance for the test of synthetic ammonia.

At that time, the authority of physical chemistry and Germany's Nernst clearly pointed out that nitrogen and hydrogen could synthesize ammonia under high pressure conditions, and provided some experimental data.

The French chemist Le Chatri was the first to try to synthesize ammonia at high pressure, but the mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen caused an explosion that caused him to abandon this dangerous experiment. Haber, who had a good foundation in the field of physical chemistry, was determined to overcome this daunting conundrum.

Haber first conducted a series of experiments to explore the optimal physicochemical conditions for ammonia synthesis.

Some of the data he obtained in the experiment were different from Nernst's, and he did not blindly follow the authority, but relied on experiments to test, and finally confirmed that Nernst's calculations were wrong.

With the help of a British student, Losenor, Haber successfully designed a device for high-pressure experiments and a process for ammonia synthesis, in which water vapor is blown on top of red-hot coke to obtain a mixture of almost equal volumes of carbon monoxide and hydrogen.

The carbon monoxide is further reacted with water vapor under the action of a catalyst to obtain carbon dioxide and hydrogen. Then the mixture is dissolved in water at a certain pressure, and the carbon dioxide is absorbed, and a purer hydrogen is produced.

Similarly, water vapor is mixed with an appropriate amount of air, and through red-hot charcoal, the oxygen and carbon in the air will be absorbed and removed to form carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, so as to obtain the required nitrogen.

Ammonia is synthesized by a mixture of nitrogen and hydrogen under high temperature and pressure conditions and under the action of a catalyst.

But what are the best high temperature and high pressure conditions? What kind of catalyst is best? This will also require a great deal of exploration.

With perseverance, and after constant experimentation and calculation, Haber finally achieved inspiring results in 1909.

This means that under the conditions of high temperature of 600°C, 200 atmospheres and osmium as a catalyst, the yield of synthetic ammonia can be about 8%. A conversion rate of 8% is not too high, and of course it will affect the economic efficiency of production.

Haber knew that it was impossible to achieve the same high conversion rate as in sulfuric acid production, where the conversion rate of sulfur dioxide oxidation was close to 100%. What to do? Haber believed that this process was feasible if the reaction gas could be cycled under high pressure, and the ammonia produced by the reaction could be continuously separated from this cycle. He then succeeded in designing the recycling process for the feed gas. This is the Haber method for ammonia synthesis.

After the birth of ammonia synthesis technology, Haber's name became famous throughout the European chemical community.

After successfully obtaining a patent for the Haber method for the synthesis of ammonia, Haber also received the news that he had won the Victorian Chemistry Award that year.

In order to get his process out of the laboratory and officially start industrial production, Haber decided to accept an invitation from Arthur to work for the Royal Society of Physical and Chemical Research in Australasia.

Of course, what really attracted Haber was that in addition to a series of conditions from the Royal Society for Physical and Chemical Research, Arthur also promised that as long as Haber was willing to hand over his process to Australasia, Australasia would be willing to do everything possible to make Haber's industrial process industrialized quickly, and build an ammonia plant and officially put it into production within five years.

At that time, the interest will be divided with Haber, and Haber will be invited to become the chief vice-president of the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry.

Arthur was confident that he would be able to build a full-scale ammonia plant because, in its original history, Haber's idea of ammonia was officially realized in 1913, when a 30-ton-per-day ammonia plant was built and put into production.

This was only about three years, and the historical Haber only handed it over to Germany's largest chemical company.

Arthur didn't believe that he could lag behind a chemical company with the strength of the whole country.

The day after Haber's arrival, Arthur announced the appointment of Haber's vice-president at the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry, and announced that the royal consortium would invest $1 million in the construction of an ammonia plant using the Haber method, witnessed by Haber and the Kent butler.

Haber invested 40 per cent in his own ammonia process, and Arthur's royal consortium invested $1 million, 60 per cent.

The site of the ammonia plant is located in the Leonora industrial site, and the construction of the plant is not difficult, but the specific equipment and methods for the industrial production of ammonia technology will have to wait for Haber and a series of members of the Royal Society of Physical and Chemical Research to study.

Arthur made a promise that the Royal Society for the Study of Physical and Chemical would give the Royal Society of Physical and Chemical Research a $1 million in research grants and an additional $20,000 each to all members as long as the Royal Society for the Study of Physical and Chemical Research could solve the problem of ammonia production.

One million Australian dollars in research funds, the more than 20 experts of the Royal Society for the Study of Physical and Chemical Research will share equally among them, and each of them will also receive tens of thousands of Australian dollars.

In addition, as long as the ammonia production technology can be solved, all members will each receive an additional 20,000 Australian dollars, which is enough for their salary for four years, and no one will refuse.

You must know that the salaries of members of the Royal Australasian Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry are definitely quite large, and they are basically at the upper middle level in Europe.

Coupled with Arthur's generosity and reward for major research results, these members earn even more than most European experts, plus free labs and annual research funds, which is why experts are willing to change their nationality to come to Australasia.

It was only after he referred the problem of industrial production of ammonia to the Royal Society for Physicochemical Research and asked Haber to focus on the construction of the ammonia plant that Arthur was relieved.

In fact, in addition to synthetic ammonia, Australasia is also currently focusing on the chemical aspect.

The new chemical plants in the Leonora Industrial Park have basically benefited from Australasia's strong support for the chemical industry.

In addition to additional tax incentives, the royal consortium and the government have also granted double loans to these chemical industries to ensure that the chemical industry has sufficient funds to develop.

At present, the tax paid by the general industry is about 11 percent, while the tax revenue of the chemical industry is only 8 percent.

Occasionally, these chemical plants receive free help from members of the Royal Society for the Study of Physical and Chemical Chemistry, and of course, if they have sufficient funds, they can be hired directly as consultants.

In addition to these, the Australasian government is now offering greater support for chemical engineering at universities.

Not only has the number of students enrolled in chemical engineering majors become larger, but there are also more reductions and exemptions in tuition and other miscellaneous fees for college students who apply for chemical engineering majors, as well as more scholarships and benefits, in order to cultivate more talents for the chemical industry.

At present, the strongest chemical industry should be the National University of Australasia and the University of Auckland.

The Australasian National University currently enrolls up to 400 students a year in chemical engineering, and the University of Auckland has an annual enrollment of 200 students in chemical engineering.

Coupled with the chemical engineering majors of other universities, the chemical industry in Australasia can also train at least 700 college students every year, which can be regarded as making up for the shortage of talents in the chemical industry.

Of course, in terms of top talent in chemistry, Australasia currently has no way to train itself, and can only rely on hiring from Europe and the United States.

Most of the time, of course, it was hired from Europe. After all, education in Europe is already very popular, and all kinds of talents are very rich, so it is easier to attract them.

Countries like the United States, although the economy is already very developed, are not as widespread in education as in Europe.

Even the reason why the United States rose in later generations was because it attracted a large number of European talents in World War I and World War II.

Now we want to attract talented people from the United States, first, these talented people are highly valued by the US Government, and second, the talent of these talented people may not be comparable to that of Europe.

With the current good relationship between Australasia and Germany, it is relatively easy for Australasia to invite some chemical experts from the German side.

So far, Australasia has hired more than 40 well-known experts from Europe, among whom the more talented ones are basically admitted to the Royal Society for the Study of Physical Chemistry.

The remaining well-known talents have basically entered the chemical engineering majors of major universities under Arthur's arrangement, and trained more mainstay talents in chemical engineering in Australasia.

Although the chemical industry is beneficial and harmful to human society, in the end, the benefits far outweigh the disadvantages, and it is also very important for the development of the country.

Under the various measures to develop the chemical industry in Australasia, major factories in the chemical industry have sprung up, and talents in the chemical industry are gradually accumulating.

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(End of chapter)