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Fritz Haber – By Unknown author –

Top 10 Amazing Facts about Fritz Haber

Fritz Haber (9th December 1868 to January 1934) was a German chemist and Nobel Prize winner in 1918 for chemistry. This was due to his invention of the Haber-Bosch process.

This was a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilizers and explosives.

Haber was also known as the 鈥渇ather of chemical warfare鈥�. His creation of poisonous gases was weaponized and used during World War I against the allied military.

His creation of the insecticide Zyklon B was used by Nazi soldiers to kill more than a million people during World War II. Here are some amazing facts about Fritz Haber:

1. He Was Born Into A German-Jewish Family In Breslau

Fritz Haber was born on the 9th of December 1868 in Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) Prussia, into a well-off Jewish family. Haber was a son of Siegfried and Paula Haber, first cousins who married despite considerable opposition from their families.

Haber鈥檚 father was a well-known merchant in town, who had founded his own business in dye pigments and pharmaceuticals. Paula experienced a difficult pregnancy and died three weeks after Fritz鈥檚 birth.

2. Haber Received His Doctorate In May 1891

Fritz Haber (* 9. Dezember 1868 in Breslau) – By Unknown author –

Fritz Haber鈥檚 education began at Johanneum school, a primary school. At age 11 he went to St. Elizabeth classical school where he graduated in 1886. He then studied chemistry at the Friedrich Wilhelm (today the Humboldt University) of Berlin.

He moved on to the University of Heidelberg in 1887 where he studied under Robert Bunsen. Haber then returned to the Technical College of Charlottenburg. There, he began to work on his doctoral thesis under Carl Liebermann. Carl advised him to work with piperonal, an organic compound in flowers and fragrances.

The college was not authorized to issue Ph.D. degrees and therefore, he submitted his thesis to Friedrich Wilhelm University. Fritz Haber received his doctorate cum laude in May 1891 from Friedrich Wilhelm University.

He spent a semester studying technical chemical processes from Georg Lunge in 1892 at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (formerly the polytechnic college in Zurich).

3. He Was A Privatdozent (Teacher)

Fritz worked for his father鈥檚 dye company for a while before they clashed and he decided to pursue an academic career. At the University of Jena, Haber worked as an assistant to Ludwig Knorr. In 1894 Fritz became Bunte鈥檚 assistant, professor at the University of Karlsruhe. Under Bunte鈥檚 guidance, Haber studied the thermal decomposition of hydrocarbons.

He was then able to come up with the analysis that the thermal stability of the bond of carbon-carbon is greater than the thermal stability of the carbon-hydrogen in aromatic compounds and is smaller than in aliphatic compounds.

In Bunte鈥檚 institute, Ritz became a privatdozent and took a teaching role related to the scope of dye technology. Fritz and Friedrich Bran were able to explain the steps in the textile printing process that Adolf Holz developed.

Fritz, under the guidance of Carl Engler, was able to come up with an explanation of autoxidation using electrochemical terms. Haber was also able to come up with the theoretical basis for measuring electrolytic potentials and glass electrodes.

4. Fritz Won The Nobel Prize in Chemistry

The setup used by Fritz Haber to create ammonia for the first time – By JGvBerkel –

During his time at the University of Karlsruhe from 1894 to 1911, he invented the Haber-Bosch process. This was achieved with the help of his assistant Robert Le Rossignol.

 The Haber-Bosch process is a catalytic formation of ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and hydrogen under the conditions of high temperature and pressure. To improve the process of ammonia production, Fritz and Carl Bosch were able to create a large-scale production.

Production of ammonia on a large scale helped in the production of much larger quantities of nitrogen-based fertilizers. This resulted in a much greater agricultural yield, which prevented billions of people from dying due to starvation. Ritz later received the 1918 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work.

5. He Was Also Known As The 鈥淔ather Of Chemical Warfare鈥�

During Weld War I, Fritz led the Chemistry Section in the Ministry of War for Germany. During the war, Haber and other scientists developed poisonous gases.

The gases were weaponized and used against enemy soldiers. Haber created a math equation called Haber鈥檚 rule after studying the effects of poison gas on the body. This formula calculated the exposure time for poisonous gases.

The poisonous gas was referred to as Mustard gas. Exposure to mustard gas resulted in coughing up blood, blisters, sores, and uncontrollable itching for allied soldiers. Mustard gas could result in death either immediately or up to six weeks after exposure to it.

However, later during the war, the soldiers used improved gas masks and chemical filters. This gave them increased protection from poison.

6. He Married Clara Immerwahr

Haber married Clara Immerwahr, a fellow chemist, in 1901. They had a son Hermann. Clara opposed his work on poison gas and tragically committed suicide with his service revolver in their garden in 1915. He then married, for the second time, in 1917 to Charlotte Nathan and they had two children, a son, and a daughter.

The couple divorced in 1927. Herman鈥檚 wife Margarethe died after the end of World War II, and Hermann committed suicide in 1946. Hermann鈥檚 oldest daughter committed suicide in 1949; also a chemist.

7. Fritz Tried To Extract Gold From Seawater

In the 1920s, Haber searched exhaustively for a method to extract gold from seawater. He even published several scientific papers on the subject. Later, he concluded that the concentration of gold dissolved in seawater was much lower than researchers reported.

He said that gold extraction from sea water was uneconomical. He performed this process of gold extraction from seawater to pay German鈥檚 war debt. Although his experiments were unsuccessful, his work paved the way for the extraction of bromine from the ocean.

8. Haber Died on January 29, 1934

Haber remained in Germany after the war. He resigned from his position in 1933 when the National Social Power came to power in Germany.

Later, he moved to London and then traveled to the Middle East in January 1934. His ill health overpowered him and on 29 January 1934, at the age of 65. The cause of death was heart failure.

Following Haber鈥檚 wishes, his son Hermann arranged for his cremation. He was then buried in Basel鈥檚 Hornli Cemetery on 29 September 1934. Clara鈥檚 remains were removed from Dahlem and re-interred with him on 27th January 1937.

9. He Received Many Awards and Achievements

Chemist Fritz Haber – By The Nobel Foundation –

In 1918, Fritz Haber, along with Carl Bosch, received Bunsen Medal from The Bunsen Society of Berlin. In 1919, he was awarded the 1918 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Haber was awarded Wilhelm Exner Medal in 1929 by the Australian Industry Association for the same invention.

In 1932, he was awarded the Rumford Medal by the Royal Society. 鈥淔or the outstanding importance of his work in physical chemistry, especially in the application of thermodynamics to chemical reactions鈥�.

10. He Proposed The Born-Haber Cycle

In 1919, Fritz proposed a graphical method to calculate the energies coming from ionic crystals. This method became known as the Born-Haber cycle.

The cycle is concerned with the formation of an ionic compound from the reaction of a metal with a halogen or other non-metallic element such as Oxygen.