Synthetic Nitrogen Industry in World War I

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.

• 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.