Haber Process

The Haber Process is a very important process in our world today. The Haber Process is the process where ammonia is created from nitrogen and hydrogen. The Haber Process is very important because of the rate it creates ammonia. Ammonia can be used to create nitric acid. The nitric acid can then be reacted with ammonia to create ammonia nitrate. Ammonium nitrate is a very important fertilizer that we use to grow food. Without this fertilizer, we wouldn’t be able to grow food fast enough to support our massive population. The chemical equation for this process is:

N2(g) + 3H2(g) 2NH3(g)

Le Chatelier’s principle states that when equilibrium is disturbed by the changing conditions, the position of the equilibrium will move to counteract the change. The conditions for the maximum yield occur when the temperature is between 450 degrees Celsius and 500 degrees Celsius. When the reaction is cooled down, the product side of the equation will increase because the equilibrium has shifted to produce it. What it produces is more heat and more of the equilibrium mixture. The Haber Process comes into play because its goal is to create more ammonia in a more efficient and effective way. If the reaction is heated, the opposite will happen.

The conditions for pressure should be around 200 atm. If the pressure is 200 atm, it would mean that the product side will get favoured and more ammonia would be created. The pressure is kept at 200 atm because it would be quite costly if every time the reaction happened and 800 atm were released!

An iron catalyst would be needed to speed up the reaction. The forward and reverse reactions are both sped up. Catalysts are widely used industrially to make things more cost efficient.

The Haber Process begins when the nitrogen and hydrogen gases are passed through 4 beds of a cooling surface. Every time these gases pass through the cooling surface they get cooled. 15% of the reaction gets turned...