During 1914 the factory started to make the ammonia. Carl Bosch wasn’t finished he wanted the fertilizer to be better. Since he spent all this work making the ammonia for the fertilizer he knew it had to be a great fertilizer. He made a research team to improve the fertilizers. He gave them a lab in Oppau. The main hurdle for Bosch was the farmers that kept using the Chilean fertilizer because they said ammonia fertilizer wouldn’t be as good, but Bosch wasn’t having it. Bosch needed to find a way to show that the ammonia fertilizer was better. The ammonia fixing process was later called the Haber-Bosch system. The system had some faults for example it was making a lot of ammonia, but barely enough to supply Germany what about the rest of the world? The Chileans and the Norwegians (they did the arc process) had enough for the world. There was also another new competitor from America called American Cyanamid, they too used nitrogen and high temperature to make fertilizer but they also used a different compound called calcium carbide. This company had all the energy they needed for the plant because they were located at Niagara Falls. Bosch knew that his process was so much better than others, but needed to show it. He decided to ask the board from BASF for more construction sites. The board wasn’t sure about this because they were already making profits from the fertilizer but the construction costs were out of the world to make more plants.
While this was happening Germany did a march on Paris. Germany knew for sure this would be a very quick war. Fritz Haber also thought it would be a quick war so he volunteered for service before it ended so he could serve his nation. He couldn’t really hold a gun because he was very old, but he became a scientific advisor for the government this would help the military with weapons and other things. Haber and Germany soon found out they were very wrong about the length of the war. Germany began to worry because their weapons and explosives would only last them six months. Haber asked BASF if they could turn the ammonia to nitric acid (which was used for explosives and other weapons). BASF said it couldn’t be possible. This did get Bosch thinking though. They were only using the ammonia for food purposes, but what if they could make bombs. BASF started to work on this while the war kept going on. Germany now was attacking France through Belgium because Belgium was very weak. This made other countries mad because Belgium was a neutral country. A surprise came for the Germans when the British and French fought the Germans. The Germans became desperate for the Chilean nitrates for weapons. They started taking all the nitrates they could find and bought all the neutral countries nitrates. The 29 kilo tons of nitrates they thought would last them a whole year of fighting was really enough to last about 10 to 5 weeks. It came down to the facts that whoever had the more nitrates would win the war.
Science was thriving during the war. The German government began to funding and expanding the competitor cyanamid to supply the needs for nitrogen. Haber said the government made the wrong decision because the Haber-Bosch way was more efficient, he also said this because he would make no money if they used the other industries. Haber and BASF needed to turn the nitrogen into nitric acid so they could make profit from the war. When researching it there was a patent for a way to turn the nitrogen into nitric acid found by Wilhelm Ostwald. Ostwald used platinum as a catalyst for the nitrogen. Ostwald never did anything with it though because no one needed nitric acid. Only a small factory was made out of this idea because no one could make much money because platinum was a lot of money. Bosch knew that they couldn’t make any money off this way so they looked for a different catalyst. The found one by making a compound from a iron mixture and bismuth. There was another problem because the ammonia couldn’t be turned directly to nitric acid. Bosch knew of another way to turn ammonia into something different: saltpeter (this can also be made into weapons and explosives even though it's not as good as nitric acid).
SaltPeter
Even though the factories would be expensive to build Germany would fund it because they were in need so bad. Bosch needed a way to compete with Cyanamid business and this was the way. There was another extra thing that this could make enough money to fund the expansion of the plant at Oppau. When Bosch was at the meeting asking for funding from Germany he promised it could make 5,000 tons of saltpeter a month in six months. He called this the Saltpeter Promise: BASF would make the 5,000 tons a month and increase it to 75,000 tons a month and BASF would receive six million marks for Oppau and the plant. Bosch didn’t like that BASF became a defense company because this nitrogen fixing process was here to help feed more people now it was killing them.
Bosch and BASF continued to work, but no one knew what was going to happen next. The French began attacking the nitric acid and saltpeter plants. The French did a air strike on Oppau. Not much damage was done because air attacks weren’t very advanced yet, but Germany wasn’t taking any chances. The put machine gun posts and other weapons all around their plants to protect them. Since Oppau was very close to France nothing could stop the attacks. Germany proposed a deal that make a second Haber-Bosch factory father from France and the plant would be a lot bigger. BASF worried that after the plant was made and the war was over they wouldn’t be able to sell all of this products. So Germany said they would make it a national German facility and hire BASF to run it. BASF agreed and got a 30 million mark loan from Germany to build the plant. The location was near a city called Luena. Bosch and BASF was still worried that when the war was over they would have too much ammonia that the prices would drop and they wouldn’t make much money from it. Then they thought it would be a good thing though because it could drive every other competitor out of the market.
While the war was going on all the ammonia would go to the military and couldn’t be used for fertilizer. This made it hard for the farmers. This is another reason that the Germans kept pushing the new factory at Luena to be built because it could make enough for the farmers too. Haber was so proud he had helped his country with this, but didn’t think it was enough he needed to make an even more destructive weapon.
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