ABSTRACT
German chemist, born on 9 December 1868 in Breslau, Silesia. Haber was the son of a well-to-do chemical merchant and pursued the study of chemistry and chemical technology at several universities and at the Technische Hochschule in Karlsruhe, where he also obtained his first academic position. A concern that the growing demand for nitrogen fertilizer could not be met by Chilean nitrate led him to concentrate on the problem of nitrogen fixation. By 1909 he had developed a method of synthesizing ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen, which made large-scale commercial production of ammonia feasible. Imbued with German patriotism, Haber was also aware of the significance of nitrogen fixation for the production of explosives during wartime.
