The End of Haber Bosch

In the video we said we’d come back to this later, but then we cut it, so here it is as a comment: the next step in killing Haber-Bosch is figuring out how to get protons and electrons from water without causing all hell to break loose in the reaction vessel – and the same team that published the work described in this video thinks they can make it happen at the anode of this same device: www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05108-y

I remember in my first chemistry class the prof told us that if any of us find a process that can replace haber bosch, we should contact him for a research partnership cause that's an instant nobel price

Now we only need tons of Trihexyltetradecylphosphonium and Bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide, which are propably both a breeze to make

I get disliking a useful chemical process because it polutes the air, or there are better ways to do the same thing. But disliking it because the guy who figured it out was evil is just...odd to me. It's not the prosess' fault.

3:34 Actually... This temperature is required because of kinetics. The reaction goes in favor of NH₃ when the temperature is low, but the time to produce increases... So it has a temperature optimal spot, where the thermodynamics is diminished, but the kinetics compensate for it

This is way too good to be true. Room temperature, 1/5th the pressure, 99%+ yields, using rare niche products, and in a portable device anyone could have? Just one of these would be astonishing, but all together it is too good to be true. Looks like researchers trying to get funding or some sort of recognition. But who knows, maybe I'm wrong? It looks easy enough to attempt, so let's try it out and see. I do hope this works, but I have seen this situation more than a few times.

I'm with Leila. How amazing that in about 5 minutes you are able to acknowledge that 1% of the global use of fossil fuel produces 50% of our worlds food production and then ignore the significance. Pretty high yield. I would vastly rather feed people than cars with fossil fuel. Of all of the uses of fossil fuel that people wish to abandon I would not be in a hurry to walk away from this one first, You and I would not be here and breathing at the same time if not for this process. Haber and Bosch, put these guys on a pedestal. Totally as an aside, as an undergraduate in chemistry some 50 years ago, I was directed to study German as the language of science. Yeah, the first posting in my career, Mexico.

The story of Fritz Haber is one of the most tragic, yet gut wrenching in history. Veritasium has a great video on him and this process that I highly recommend watching.

in Germany, we pronounce it "HAH-ber", not "HAY-ber".

When I started as a chemist, reading German was mandatory. I was an analytical chemist in an agricultural lab, so nitrogen chemistry was a big deal in my earliest days as a lab rat. A lot of the procedures we had to follow were only written in German. Well, that was 40 years ago. Maybe things are different now. Fortunately, technical German is not difficult for English speaking chemists.

One has to be skeptical of a new process which purports to be such an enormous improvement over Haber-Bosch. I admit to being beyond my depth and hope every bit of it is true. We need all the help we can get.

Honestly 2% of the world's CO2 emission for 50% of the world's food production, does not seem like a problem to me. We do not need to fly, it is just convenient, we need food.

At 13:07 you guys say it has almost 100% efficiency. Big disclaimer! There is a massive difference between efficiency and Faradaic efficiency. Even a reaction with 100% Faradaic efficiency will not be 100% efficient

Awful lot of pearl clutching and virtue signaling here. A bit much. Haber process ammonia is also used in **EXPLOSIVES** *gasp* (clutches pearls TIGHTER). You would be absolutely "shook" if you found out about Alfred Nobel..... **faints**. Chemistry is **SO** controversial... /s **sigh** You got your engagement now just try talking about the science next time without the histrionics.

I don't know why I am here but has anyone mentioned that there are 20,000 species of legumes that symbiotically fix nitrogen with bacteria and fungi. From the little I know, farmers have traditionally been alternating crops like wheat with grazing legumes like alfalfa and clover for generations. I know that modern agriculture depends heavily on massive monocrops. Which is a food security nightmare in itself considering the risk of disease, pests and weather crisis. It would require a massive change in paradigm , but commercial agriculture could attempt simultaneous mixed crops aka companion planting. GPS and AI controlled machinery could make this practical.

Your opinion on what is a " role model " is irrelevant to chemistry. A lot of chemists have worked on projects that could be turned into a weapon and worked on weapons in defense of their country. To be fair, chemical weapons chemistry and research have definitely saved more lives than it took. In just pesticides alone prevented billions from starvation. Even if we dont use most of the early chemicals, they and their science led to others.

The "NICE" at 69% killed me :D

As always, the scripts and editing in these videos is freekin' sublime! The whole scene with him just rattling off the crazy chemical name without fail ending with a "Nice" joke is just... chef's kiss great!

Plants use nitrogenase for nitrogen fixation. Part of nitrogenase is FeMoCo which is an iron molybdenum cofactor that uses nitrogen in the air as a ligand.

LOVE the humor, and man those setting changes with no break in speech are trippy!