The Iron Mine that Feeds the World

  In the early 1900's an agricultural crises was brewing.   The world was running out of cheap nitrate fertilizer.   There were mines in Chile that produced nitrates, but they were charging OPEC like prices for their output.  In Germany, Fritz Haber working for the BASF company developed the chemistry necessary to prove that nitrate fertilizer could be made using anhydrous ammonia produced from nitrogen extracted from the air.  The process was not very efficient, so the task of making the process economically viable was given to Karl Bosch.   Bosch tried several hundred different catalyst for the nitrogen - hydrogen reaction that was key to making ammonia (NH3).   Many different metals and ores were tried (over 6000) before a special kind of magnetite ore (Fe3O4) was found in a sample from the Gallavare mine in northern Sweden.   This ore had just the right crystaline structure (111 orientation) so that 7 iron molecules were in proxcimity to each other, plus it had minute traces of aluminum and phosphorus that gave it unique catalyst properties.  So in 1913 it was possible for BASF to commercially produce nitrates from the air, freeing the world from dependence on Chile for nitrate fertilizer.  Today, 500 million tons of nitrate fertilizer is produced each year.  This has led to a doubling of food production,  a greener planet where more plants take up CO2, leading to less global warming.   But this is all due to the fortunate existance of the Gallivare iron mine.   A mine that was started in 1892 and is still producing today, 120 years later.    You can trace the knee of the world population curve that goes upward soon after 1920 to the fact that we did not run out of nitrates.   Half the population of the planet may now be alive and well fed because of the Gallavare mine.