Abstract
MR. KEMPTON has provided a very brief but readable account of an important industry which has grown up within the last ten years. The descriptions of the processes are necessarily very sketchy, but enough information is given to enable one to form a reasonably accurate picture of the present state of affairs-one which, it may be mentioned, is by no means to the credit of this country. Several minor inaccuracies were noted. The yields of the various arc furnaces given on p. I5 are not the real figures. The Claude process is not the only one largely used for the manufacture of nitrogen (p. 32). Copper formate, not chloride, is used for the purification of hydrogen in the Haber process (p. 45). “Rev. A. Milner, 1871” should be “Rev. I. Milner, 1788” (p. 64). The “Ostwald-Barton system” of ammonia oxidation (p. 67) is quite adequately described by the first of the two names, and the statement that in it “a catalyst of secret composition is used instead of platinum,” although it appears to have been spread abroad for the information of the credulous, is wholly without foundation.
Industrial Nitrogen: The Principles and Methods of Nitrogen Fixation and the Industrial Applications of Nitrogen Products in the Manufacture of Explosives, Fertilizers, Dyes, etc.
By P. H. S. Kempton. (Pitman's Technical Primer Series.) Pp. xii + 104. (London: Sir I. Pitman and Sons, Ltd., 1922.) 2s. 6d. net.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Industrial Nitrogen: The Principles and Methods of Nitrogen Fixation and the Industrial Applications of Nitrogen Products in the Manufacture of Explosives, Fertilizers, Dyes, etc . Nature 110, 805 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110805b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110805b0