10. Ammonia and Methanol Synthesis

In the early days, the composition of catalysts discovered and developed by Mittasch that were used by BASF in the plants at Oppau and Leuna was kept secret. Apart from the fact that iron was used and that the process operated at high pressure, little other technical information was available until after the war had ended. When the new synthesis process was investigated in other European countries and the United States, many different catalyst promoters were listed in a large number of patent applications and in the technical literature.1 The wide variety of processes and catalysts developed during the 1920s reflects the difficulties experienced in establishing suitable operating conditions. These technical difficulties, together with a static demand for ammonia, meant that only a few plants were actually built before 1940 and BASF retained a virtual monopoly on the manufacture of ammonia.