page_title: Haber process
section_title: Catalysts
hierarchical_section_title: Haber process / Catalysts
context_page_description: The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today. It is named after its inventors, the German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch, who developed it in the first decade of the 20th century. The process converts atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia by a reaction with hydrogen using a metal catalyst under high temperatures and pressures:
  Before the development of the Haber process, ammonia had been difficult to produce on an industrial scale, with early methods such as the Birkeland–Eyde process and Frank–Caro process all being highly inefficient.
  Although the Haber process is mainly used to produce fertilizer today, during World War I it provided Germany with a source of ammonia for the production of explosives, compensating for the Allied Powers' trade blockade on Chilean saltpeter.
context_section_description: The Haber–Bosch process relies on catalysts to accelerate the hydrogenation of N₂. The catalysts are "heterogeneous", meaning that they are solid that interact on gaseous reagents. 
  The catalyst typically consists of finely divided iron bound to an iron oxide carrier containing promoters possibly including aluminium oxide, potassium oxide, calcium oxide, and magnesium oxide.
caption: Profiles of the active components of heterogeneous catalysts; the top right figure shows the profile of a shell catalyst.