Birkeland-Eyde electric-arc nitrogen fixation
Proceso Birkeland-Eyde de fijación de nitrógeno por arco eléctrico
- Date
- 1903-1905 · confidence high
- Place
- Notodden, Telemark, Norway
- Credited to
- Kristian Birkeland and Sam Eyde (Norsk Hydro)
- Field
- Matter & energy
What it is
A method that spreads an electric arc with an electromagnet and passes air through it to produce nitrogen oxides, converted into calcium nitrate as fertiliser. The Notodden plant (1905) was the first industrial process for fixing atmospheric nitrogen.
The process consumed enormous amounts of electricity (about 15 MWh per tonne of nitrogen fixed) and became obsolete with the Haber-Bosch process in the 1920s. Birkeland also studied the aurora (Birkeland currents) and proposed an electromagnetic cannon (1901).
What it led to
- the founding of Norsk Hydro (1905) and Norwegian hydropower-based industry
- the large hydroelectric works at Rjukan and Vemork
- synthetic fertilisers before Haber-Bosch