Haber process

What does it mean by Haber's process? And any further info, please?

The Haber process basically uses nitrogen and hydrogen to make ammonia. You get nitrogen from the air and hydrogen from natural gas like methane or other sources liek crude oil. They are put in a reaction vessel in a 3:1 ratio. The reaction vessel has trays of an iron catalyst, a temperature of 450C and a pressure of 200 atm. It is a reservable reaction so the "leftover" H2 and N2 is reused/recycled. At a lower temperature the yield of ammonia is greater because the forward reaction is exothermic meaning that due to Le Chatelier's principle increasing the temperature will actually move the equilibrium the wrong way towards N2 and H2 so lower temperatures actually make more ammonia. However the temperature is 450 as a lower temperature means a lower ROR, so it is almost like. compromise between rate and yield. Similarly, pressure is a compromise between cost and yield. A higher pressure favours the forward reaction meaning there is more ammonia produced but a very high pressure would cost a lot to build and maintain. Finally the iron catalyst means that the reaction goes faster and means that equilibrium is reached faster. It doesn't make more or less products form but it does mean that the temperature doesn't have to be raised as high. Hope this helped :smile:

Reply 2

Kallisto

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Original post by aboni_06

What does it mean by Haber's process? And any further info, please?

This process means to get the amount nitrogen from the air (air contains 78% of nitrogen) needed to produce ammonia in the ratio 3:1 to hydrogen. Hydrogen in turn can be got from hydrocarbons, so from alkanes and oil for instance. By using decent pressures and temperatures, the Haber's process is still a current method for the ammonia production.