Nitrogen Capture: The Growth of an International Industry (1900-1940)

Introduction: Food or Famine.- Agricultural Chemistry.- The Quest for Fixed Nitrogen.- Ammonium Sulphate.- Electricity and the Chemical Industry.- The Direct Synthesis of Ammonia.- A Time of Guns and Grain.- Wartime Expansion of the Nitrogen Industry.- Billingham: "The Synthetic".- Non-BASF Ammonia Technology and Ammonia Oxidation.- The United States.- New Ideologies and National Security in the 1920s.- International Conferences, and an Adriatic Cruise.- Synthetic Nitrogen in the Soviet Union.- Imperial Japan: From Cyanamide to Synthetic Ammonia.- High-Pressure Synthesis and Later Developments.- Nobel Prizes and a New Technology.- A Legacy of Synthetic Nitrogen.- Catching up: Mainly Italy, Japan, and the Soviet Union.- Conclusion.