Fritz Haber was born on December
9, 1868 in Breslau, Germany, in one of the oldest families of the
town, as the son of Siegfried Haber, a merchant. He went to
school at the St. Elizabeth classical school at Breslau and he
did, even while he was at school, many chemical
experiments.
From 1886 until 1891 he studied chemistry at the University of Heidelberg under Bunsen, at the
University of Berlin under A.W. Hoffmann, and at the Technical
School at Charlottenburg under Liebermann. After completing his
University studies he voluntarily worked for a time in his
father's chemical business and, being interested in chemical
technology, he also worked for a while under Professor Georg
Lunge at the Institute of Technology at Zurich. He then finally
decided to take up a scientific career and went for one and a
half years to work with Ludwig Knorr at Jena, publishing with him
a joint paper on diacetosuccinic ester. Still uncertain whether
to devote himself to chemistry or physics, he was offered in
1894, and accepted, an assistantship at Karlsruhe by the Professor of Chemical Technology
there, Hans Bunte. Here he remained until 1911. Bunte was
especially interested in combustion chemistry and Carl Engler,
who was also there, introduced Haber to the study of petroleum
and Haber's subsequent work was greatly influenced by these two
colleagues.
In 1896 Haber qualified as a Privatdozent with a thesis on his
experimental studies of the decomposition and combustion of
hydrocarbons and in 1906 he was appointed Professor of Physical
Chemistry and Electrochemistry and Director of the Institute
established at Karlsruhe to study these subjects.
In 1911 he was appointed to succeed Engler as Director of the
Institute for Physical and Electrochemistry at Berlin-Dahlem,
where he remained until, in 1933, the Nazi race laws compelled
nearly all his staff to resign and Haber, rather than agree to
this, himself resigned. He was then invited by Sir William Pope
to go to Cambridge, England and there he remained for a
while. He had, however, been suffering for some time from heart
disease and, fearing the English winter, he moved to
Switzerland.
Haber's early work on the decomposition and combustion of
hydrocarbons has already been mentioned.
In 1898 Haber published his textbook on Electrochemistry, which
was based on the lectures he gave at Karlsruhe. In the preface to
his book he expressed his intention to relate chemical research
to industrial processes and in the same year he reported the
results of his work on electrolytic oxidation and reduction, in
which he showed that definite reduction products can result if
the potential at the cathode is kept constant. In 1898 he
explained the reduction of nitrobenzene in stages at the cathode
and this became the model for other similar reduction
processes.
There followed, during the next ten years, many other
electrochemical researches. Among these was his work on the
electrolysis of solid salts (1904), on the establishment of the
quinone-hydroquinone equilibrium at the cathode, which laid the
foundations for Biilmann's quinhydrone electrode for determining
the acidity of a liquid; but Haber invented, in collaboration
with Cremer, the glass electrode for the same purposes which is
now widely used. This led Haber to make the first experimental
investigations of the potential differences that occur between
solid electrolytes and their aqueous solutions, which were of
great interest to physiologists.
During this period Haber also studied the loss of energy by steam
engines, turbines and motors driven by fuels, and sought methods
of limiting their loss by electrochemical means. He did not
succeed in finding a solution of this problem that was
commercially applicable, but he did succeed in finding a
fundamental solution for the laboratory combustion of carbon
monoxide and hydrogen.
He then turned to the study of flames and did fundamental
researches on the Bunsen flame, showing that, in the luminous
inner cone of this flame, a thermodynamic water-gas equilibrium
is established and that, in its outer mantle, there is combustion
of water-gas. This led to a chemical method of determining flame
temperatures.
Haber then undertook the work on the fixation of nitrogen from
the air for which he was given the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for
1918 (awarded in 1919).
In 1905 he had published his book on the thermodynamics of
technical gas reactions, in which he recorded the production of
small amounts of ammonia from N2 and H2 at
a temperature of 1000° C with the help of iron as a
catalyst. Later he decided to attempt the synthesis of ammonia
and this he accomplished after searches for suitable catalysts,
by circulating nitrogen and hydrogen over the catalyst at a
pressure of 150-200 atmospheres at a temperature of about
500° C. This resulted in the establishment, with the
cooperation of Bosch and Mittasch, of the Oppau and Leuna Ammonia
Works, which enabled Germany to prolong the First World War when,
in 1914, her supplies of nitrates for making explosives had
failed. Modifications of this Haber process also provided
ammonium sulphate for use as a fertilizer for the soil. The
principle used for this process and the subsequent development of
the control of catalytic reactions at high pressures and
temperatures, led to the synthesis of methyl alcohol by Alwin
Mittasch and to the hydrogenation of coal by the method of
Bergius and the production of nitric acid.
During the years between the two World Wars Haber produced his
firedamp whistle for the protection of miners, his quartz thread
manometer for low gas pressures and his observation that
adsorption powers can be due to unsaturated valence forces of a
solid body, on which Langmuir
founded his theory of adsorption. When the First World War broke
out he was appointed a consultant to the German War Office and
organised gas attacks and defences against them. This and other
work undermined his health and for some time he was engaged in
administrative work. He helped to create the German Relief
Organisation and served on the League of Nations Committee on
Chemical Warfare.
From 1920 until 1926 he experimented on the recovery of gold from
sea water, his idea being to enable Germany to meet her war
reparations. Greatly depressed by the failure of this project,
which he attributed to his own deficiency, he devoted himself to
the reorganisation of his Institute, to which he appointed
sectional directors with complete freedom in their work. Among
these were James Franck, Herbert Freundlich, Michael Polanyi and
Rudolf Ladenburg; from the Institute came much work on colloid
chemistry and atomic physics. Haber himself, at this time, made
great efforts to re-establish the scientific relationships of
Germany with other countries and the colloquia which he held
every fortnight did much to establish the international repute of
his Institute. During his last years he worked on chain reactions
and on mechanisms of oxidation and on hydrogen peroxide
catalysis.
Haber lived for science, both for its own sake and also for the
influence it has in moulding human life and human culture and
civilization. Versatile in his talents, he possessed an
astonishing knowledge of politics, history, economics, science
and industry and he might have succeeded equally well in other
fields. The hesitation with which he finally decided to be a
chemist has already been mentioned. He welcomed administrative
responsibilities in addition to research work. Always
approachable and courteous, he was interested in every kind of
problem. His ability to clarify, in a few sentences, the
obscurities of a scientific discussion, was a valuable feature of
the colloquia he held at his Institute and his organising talent
made him a model Director of a large establishment in which he
allowed complete freedom, to the workers under him, maintaining,
nevertheless, a remarkable control over the activities of the
Institute as a whole. A man of forceful personality, he left a
lasting impression on the minds of all his associates.
Apart from the Nobel Prize, Haber received many honours during
his life. At Max von Laue's instigation, the Institute for
Physical and Electrochemistry at Berlin-Dahlem was renamed the
Fritz Haber Institute after his death.
After a grave illness, Haber died on January 29, 1934, at Basle,
on his way from England to convalesce in Switzerland, his spirit
broken by his rejection by the Germany he had served so well.
From Nobel Lectures, Chemistry 1901-1921, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1966
This autobiography/biography was written at the time of the award and first published in the book series Les Prix Nobel. It was later edited and republished in Nobel Lectures. To cite this document, always state the source as shown above.
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1918
Fritz Haber
