Chapter XXVII: Nitrogen

BY CHESTER G. GILBERT

USES OF NITROGEN

Plant life requires nitrogen and gets it in the normal cycle of events. But when the occasion calls for stimulating the growth of plant life by feeding, by soil fertilization in other words, nitrogen in available form is indispensable. Further down along the channels of food supply it exercises another and equally important function in providing the chemical (ammonia) around which the modern practice of refrigeration is built. Likewise, the chemistry of explosives is basically the chemistry of nitrogen compounds. Nor is this all, for chemical operations in general--hence research and industrial chemistry in general--involve the employment of nitrogen compounds. Such, in brief, is its status. On each of three major counts, the interests of food production, of food distribution, and of national defense, it is indispensable; and of no less consequence is the retinue of less conspicuous agencies serving the interests of chemistry at every turn.

GEOLOGICAL DISTRIBUTION

The development of fixed nitrogen sources is conditioned by three simple chemical facts. With these three simple facts in mind the rest follows largely as a matter of inference. The facts are:

That under all ordinary conditions of temperature and pressure, free nitrogen is a gas.

That it is extremely inert and indisposed to participate with other elements in the formation of chemical compounds.

That such combinations when they do occur are characteristically soluble.

In consequence of these three governing principles, along with its relationship to organic matter, as alluded to under the preceding caption, nitrogen has four habits of occurrence, worth considering as at least potential sources of supply.

=Atmospheric Nitrogen.=--Being indisposed to participate in chemical combinations, nitrogen in the course of world evolution was left largely to itself; and since in the free state it is normally gaseous, it established its home in the atmosphere. Thus it comes about that the atmosphere today is approximately four-fifths nitrogen gas, and after all is said and done the atmosphere is bound to constitute the great source to which we must turn for our supplies. With a source so boundlessly ever-present, the question of supply at first glance looks simple enough. But atmospheric nitrogen, it must be remembered, is nitrogen uncombined, and the demand is not for nitrogen itself but for nitrogen-bearing compounds. Once in a state of combination, it may remain so indefinitely, and the form of combination may be changed more or less readily to suit the demand. Before it can be put to use, however, it must be induced to surrender its gaseous freedom and affix itself in some such state of combination. The free nitrogen must become fixed nitrogen--hence the terms fixed nitrogen, nitrogen fixation, and the like in common use. Toward this end it must be induced to do what it has not seen fit to do of its own accord, and the very trait of aloofness responsible for the inexhaustible resources of atmospheric nitrogen stands as an obstacle opposing their utilization. The obstacle has not proven insuperable, as will appear later; but it is sufficiently a source of trouble even to this day, so that the fixed-nitrogen situation may with peculiar appropriateness be characterized as distinctly in the air.

=Nitrate Ore Deposits.=--The disposition on the part of nitrogen to take up its abode in the atmosphere has an obvious result in minimizing the development of mineral nitrates. Atmospheric nitrogen is not entirely stagnant, however. Natural processes are constantly at work effecting substantial fixation. The processes are not obtrusively energetic, as in the case of atmospheric oxygen, whose fixation processes constitute the ever-present phenomena of oxidation. Still, in various ways, the most prominent among which is undoubtedly a form of bacterial action, nitrification and the building up of nitrate minerals everywhere in the soil goes quietly forward, and their concentration in ore deposits of more or less plentiful occurrence is thus to be looked for in the natural course of geologic events. In attempting to trace their further course, however, we are confronted at the outset by the principle of solubility. The nitrate minerals are in the nature of soluble salts. They leach from the immediate environment in which they form, just as do the soluble minerals in general. Mostly these latter are carried in solution to the ocean, adding themselves to its salinity; but under exceptional conditions of topography, where the drainage feeds into land-locked basins, the water finds itself entrapped with no avenue of escape except through evaporation. Here the salts accumulate, become concentrated, and finally give rise to deposits.

This, in outline, is the course set for the soluble mineral salts as a class, and it is along this course that we must expect to trace the development of nitrate ore deposits. But the ocean, with its 3¹⁄₂ per cent. of salinity, has only traces of nitrate minerals; and the same is true for the waters of land-locked basins, in all the various stages of concentration. Their solubility is such that they can not have escaped in substantial form along the way. There is only one inference to be drawn. Evidently the inherent trait of aloofness is not lost to nitrogen when it does combine. The compounds do not survive for any length of time, but undergo dissociation, releasing their nitrogen and returning it to the atmosphere even as other processes are slowly withdrawing it from the atmosphere.

With this the eternal cycle is closed for nitrogen, and closed without apparent provision for any considerable side-tracking, such as would be required in the building up of ore deposits. So much for the rule; now as to the exceptions: Mostly they are of minor consequence. Pockety enrichments in the soil are common. Accumulations tend to build up in caves, and may even grow to be of consequence in a small way, as during the Civil War, when they helped materially toward relieving the nitrogen troubles of the blockaded Confederacy. In arid country, too, they not infrequently assume sufficient prominence to be of interest, especially at the hands of the promoter. Finally, there are the Chilean nitrate fields, which far from being of minor consequence, go to the other extreme in catering to the needs of the entire world.

These occurrences, especially the last named, have served to keep alive the hope that others of economic importance await discovery. The Chilean deposits alone among them all deserve more than passing notice. The origin of these deposits is veiled in uncertainty. Just why or how the natural forces, which elsewhere as a matter of universal observation have been seen to oppose both the formation of nitrogen salts and the accumulation of such as do manage to form, should have failed in this particular instance remains wholly conjectural. A conclusive explanation would be of the utmost value in determining the likelihood of similar occurrences elsewhere. But none has been forthcoming, and nothing is to be gained to the present purpose from stopping to inquire into the plausibility of the various attempts that have been made. Confronting us on the one hand are the evidences of a nitrogen cycle established, seemingly, without affording any visible loophole of opportunity for the accumulation of extensive deposits; on the other hand stands the bare fact of enormous deposition. This fact of existence unquestionably carries with it the possibility of duplication elsewhere. However, the fact of occurrence merely suggests the possibility, but does not determine the chances of recurrence. These are recorded in the prevalence of the conditions requisite to extensive deposition. In the case of nitrogen they are unique beyond comprehension, and the prospect of recurrence is to precisely the same degree unlikely. Accordingly, to all practical purposes, a review of the world’s nitrate ore deposits, both real and potential, resolves itself down to a review of the Chilean occurrence.

The Chilean nitrate fields lie in the arid valley basin to the east of the lofty coast range and just south of the present Peruvian boundary line. They do not occur as a single expansive area of deposition, but as deposits scattered here and there along the desert land at the bases of the mountain slopes. The formation consists of a conglomerate or breccia of rock material from the adjacent slopes, cemented with a mixture of soluble salts in which sodium chloride, common salt, is the dominant member, with sodium nitrate ranking second. The formation is called _caliche_. It lies for the most part just below the surface of the ground and varies from a few feet to many feet in thickness. Only in scattered patches is the caliche high enough in content of sodium nitrate to warrant treatment. These patches are sought out and excavated, and the picked ore is loaded in carts, which haul it to the extraction plant for treatment. Here the soluble salts as a whole are extracted in solution, and the nitrate in turn is segregated from the other salts by crystallization. Aside from haulage, hand labor is used throughout.

The caliche regarded as worth treating contains not less than 10 per cent. nitrate and ranges up to 25 per cent. and over, with an average of around 18 per cent. The product marketed is of two general grades--the ordinary, listed as 95 per cent. nitrate, and the refined, a guaranteed 96 per cent. nitrate, low in sodium chloride. The deposits have been worked more or less consistently, and with steadily increasing output, since about 1830. Their importance in the scheme of nitrogen supply may be gathered from Figures 16 to 18.

=Organic Nitrogen.=--Another source of fixed nitrogen grows out of its relationship to life processes, and is consequent on the very requirements of organized society which earlier it is called upon to assist in meeting. In other words, fixed nitrogen participates in the material cycle of life. It enters into the material demands of life for food, and it is yielded up among the material discards available to absorption. All manner of residuum, animal and vegetable alike, affords at least a potential source of fixed-nitrogen supply. Some of these are in service; others for one reason or another are not. Prominent among those in the former class are animal excreta, the so-called tankage from animal rendering plants, slaughter-house refuse, fish scrap, and vegetable-product refinery refuse. Most prominent among those still largely potential are sewage and garbage disposal.

The nitrogen from these organic sources does not appear on the market as such. Instead, the products enter in bulk into the make-up of fertilizer. They are of miscellaneous character, and only part of what is contributed collects to pass through industrial channels where its flow may be measured. The industrial flow goes on record and the records are available, but even here the nitrogen content has never been systematically computed, so the record is inadequate. For the rest, the portion that does not reach the channels of industry, there is nothing whatever in the way of data to go by. Taken all in all, then, the significance of the organic nitrogen resources is largely conjectural. This is unfortunate. Approximate figures covering the use of organic nitrogen would be of value in various connections, as in the interests of intelligent allocation in times of nitrogen shortage, as helping to determine the extent to which the growing demands of agriculture incident to the growth of population may be discounted from the consequent expansion of scavenging opportunity, or as affording a basis for estimating the very considerable influence of motorization toward increasing the demand for chemically prepared fertilizers.

As things stand, all such questions of relationship lead only to profitless speculation. Even the relative importance of the organic sources as a whole in the economics of nitrogen supply is uncertain. What they have to offer of undeveloped reserves, now taking the form of wasteful sanitation procedure, will be taken up later. Under existing conditions, it is probably fair to assume that 40 to 50 per cent. of the nitrogen normally put to use in the United States is organically associated.

=Carboniferous Deposits.=--Nitrogen in its organic relationships is bound up with carbon, of which organic matter is largely composed, and the bond between the two is entirely disestablished only as the carbon itself loses its substantial form through oxidation. In consequence of this enduring alliance, nitrogen is characteristically present in carboniferous deposits, a form of occurrence giving rise to still another, a fourth type of nitrogen resource. Coal and oil-shale loom up as the outstanding representatives of this class. In each, the nitrogen content is variable, but amounts to 1 per cent. or over. With so low a percentage of nitrogen, it goes without saying that neither of these is to be regarded as a possible source of direct supply. The cost would be prohibitive, even under the stress of the most extreme emergency. The nitrogen in a coal bed or an oil-shale formation is as worthless as the iron in any ordinary rock. But coal has other uses, and so has oil shale, or at least will shortly. The nitrogen does not have to be extracted; it gets released incidentally, and when its release is effected under conditions that prevent its escape, the result is a productive nitrogen resource. The nitrogen from this type of resource is in the form of ammonia, the relative importance of which is shown in Figures 16 to 18 and Table 66.

GENERAL ASPECTS OF CONTROL

Such is the nature of the nitrogen resources. The resource situation as a whole is represented graphically in Figure 15. None other can compare with it for inclusiveness. Its sources are animal, vegetable, mineral, and atmospheric, which is to say, universal; and out of this unparalleled diversity has grown an industrial development as complex as it is diversified, and, incidentally, in view of its bearing on food and munitions supply, as important as it is complex. The situation at best can be but imperfectly grasped, for it has been but inadequately studied. In transgressing all set rules of resource occurrence, it transgresses the limits set for organized investigation. Geologists have studied one phase of the situation, electrochemists another, sanitation experts another, and so on; and the various commercial interests involved have seen to the giving of publicity where publicity would do the most good.

TABLE 66.--STATISTICS OF NITROGEN PRODUCTION

----+-----------+--------------------------
| Organic | Chemical nitrogen
| nitrogen +-------------------------+
+-----------+ Sodium |
| | nitrate |
| Dried +---------+-----+---------+
| blood; | | Do- | |
| tankage; | | mes-| |
| guano; | | tic | +
|fish scrap;| World’s | pro-| |
|cotton seed| pro- | duc-| |
| cake and | duction,|tion,| Imports,|
Year|meal; etc. | tons | tons| tons |
----+-----------+---------+-----+---------+
1900| | ...| ...| ...|
1901| Data for |1,328,664| ...| 203,960|
1902| organic |1,349,300| ...| 205,245|
1903| nitrogen |1,485,279| ...| 272,947|
1904|indefinite,|1,559,091| ...| 228,012|
1905| but |1,754,605| ...| 321,231|
1906| probably |1,800,500| ...| 372,222|
1907| about |1,846,036| ...| 364,610|
1908| equal to |1,970,974| ...| 310,713|
1909|the total |2,110,961| ...| 428,429|
1910| for |2,465,415| ...| 529,172|
1911| chemical |2,521,023| ...| 544,878|
1912| nitrogen. |2,585,850| ...| 486,352|
1913| |2,772,254| ...| 625,862|
1914| |2,463,356| ...| 541,715|
1915| |1,755,291| ...| 772,190|
1916| |2,912,893| ...|1,218,423|
1917| |2,950,000| ...|1,555,839|
1918| |2,900,000| ...|1,845,192|
----+-----------+---------+-----+---------+

----+---------------------------------------
| Chemical nitrogen
|---------------------------------------+
+ Fixation |
| compounds |
|--------------------------+-----+------+
| | Do- | |
| World’s production | mes-| |
|--------+-------+---------+ tic | |
| Ammon. |Calcium| | pro-| |
| sulph. |nitrate|Cyanamid,| duc-| Im- |
|(Haber),|(Arc), | tons |tion,|ports,|
Year| tons | tons | | tons| tons |
----+--------+-------+---------+-----+------+
1900| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1901| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1902| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1903| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1904| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1905| ...| ...| ...| ...| ...|
1906| ...| ...| 386| ...| ...|
1907| ...| ...| 1,874| ...| ...|
1908| ...| ...| 2,767| ...| ...|
1909| ...| 45,450| 12,734| ...| ...|
1910| ...| ...| 22,596| ...| 764|
1911| ...| ...| 59,479| ...| 5,617|
1912| ...| ...| 115,688| ...| 7,134|
1913| 20,000|181,800| 173,026| ...|14,656|
1914| 60,000| ...| 208,070| ...|29,536|
1915| 150,000| ...| 845,388| ...|20,564|
1916| 300,000| ...|1,053,439| ...|38,023|
1917| 500,000|300,000| 954,765| ...|44,146|
1918| ...| ...| ...| ...|43,070|
----+--------+-------+---------+-----+------+

----+------------------------
| Chemical nitrogen
|------------------------
+ By-product
| ammonium sulphate
|---------+-------+------
| | Do- |
| | mes- |
| | tic |
| World’s | pro- |
| pro- | duc- | Im-
| duction,| tion, |ports,
Year| tons | tons | tons
----+---------+-------+------
1900| 540,000| 27,600| 8,411
1901| 580,000| 29,279|14,486
1902| 600,000| 36,124|18,146
1903| 640,000| 41,873|16,777
1904| 650,000| 54,664|16,667
1905| 694,575| 65,296|15,288
1906| 778,365| 75,000| 9,182
1907| 906,255| 99,300|30,114
1908| 970,200| 83,400|38,238
1909| 987,840|106,500|42,914
1910|1,104,705|116,000|92,342
1911|1,206,135|127,000|94,633
1912|1,356,075|165,000|59,542
1913|1,532,475|195,000|65,775
1914|1,320,000|183,000|75,010
1915|1,690,000|249,000|36,370
1916|2,000,000|285,000|12,962
1917| ...|325,000|
1918| | |
----+---------+-------+------

But an investigation working on the basis of geology alone can not cope with the situation; neither can one on the basis of technology alone; nor one on the basis of organic chemistry, or bacteriology alone; nor yet one prepared to employ any or all of these means, but only with a view to some special end. Nor yet again does the discordant grinding of many axes make a noise from which it is possible to gather an adequate comprehension. The nitrogen situation has been inadequately treated because it has been inadequately studied. It has been studied piecemeal, always through the medium of limited means or with some special end in view. It is not a series of technical problems in geology, in bacteriology, in fixation, in munitions supply, and the like. It has to do with a composite economic structure, building for the dependence of society in peace and war alike. Until treated as such, the needs of the situation are bound to be inadequately met and its control a matter of perilous uncertainty. The present discussion makes no pretense of supplying this deficiency or of doing much of anything more than to show the extent to which it exists.

Figure 15 is designed to show not so much the scope of the resources as their composite functioning in the system of nitrogen supply. The influence of geography in the control of resources so universally available is bound to be subordinate. True, it enables Chile to exercise monopolistic control over the mineral nitrate supply, but it leaves the way open for the development of others; and while acknowledging the fullness of our dependence, as shown in Figures 16 to 18 and Table 66, we must not lose sight of the fact that it is so not of necessity, but because we have been content to leave it so rather than undertake to develop supplies of our own. So, too, with political control; what is gained in one direction is, potentially at least, offset by the possibilities opening up in others. Control of the sea gives a control over the mineral nitrate supply as absolute as that in Chile’s territorial monopoly. Yet in the recent great war, Germany, with her shipping obliterated at the outset, was not made to suffer materially from a nitrogen shortage. Britain’s supremacy of the sea went for naught. In the years before the war the force due in season to exercise control over the nitrate supply served only to stimulate the development of domestic potentialities, with the result that when the test came Germany’s proved actually to be the more advantageous equipment.

So it goes. Control over the nitrogen resources themselves is impossible. They are too universally available. Their only susceptibility to control is in the shaping of their development. This is too important a matter to be disregarded with impunity and left to develop without guidance. The modern nation that does so courts the irrepressible disaster of a nation at war but bereft of the means not only of waging war but of maintaining a food supply as well. From Figure 16 may be gathered the quality of attention given the matter of domestic supply by the different nations immediately before and during the war. Germany, it will be observed, heeded the call to give the matter special attention well before the war and had an independent system of supply developed in readiness, drawing upon the atmosphere and coal-product nitrogen with the results already chronicled. Great Britain did not ignore the importance of nitrogen, but placed reliance on her supremacy of the sea and paid little or no attention to shaping the course of developments. Nor did its importance go unheeded elsewhere abroad, and the foothold gained for fixation in France, Italy, Austria, Russia, and Japan was, it is safe to say, not wholly automatic. The United States alone among the great nations up to the outbreak of hostilities in Europe in 1914 neglected to take any special precautions whatever.

The war, when it came, far exceeded all expectations as to magnitude, and so in consequence did the demand for specially developed nitrogen supplies. To meet the emergency, some could be deflected from agricultural channels, but nothing like what was required, for food was just as important as munitions. The organic sources offered no help. Rather they were a hindrance; for organic nitrogen, broadly speaking, comes as a by-product of sanitation, and as such develops as the outgrowth of civilization’s refinements. There was a measurable response from the carboniferous sources, but these could not be made to meet the emergency, for, being of by-product order, the supply is determined not in response to the demand for nitrogen but for the major products. Dependence on the native mineral source in Chile was out of the question, or at least precarious for any country except Great Britain. Accordingly, of the four great sources it remained for atmospheric nitrogen to meet the emergency. Thus, the war in bringing the nitrogen situation emphatically to the fore, communicated practically the whole weight of its tremendous impetus to development in the one direction of fixation. The result is shown in Figure 18.

Roused by the nightmare of war in 1914, even the United States awoke to the perils if not to the real needs of the domestic situation. It is a striking and highly significant fact that despite the fundamental importance of nitrogen, the awakening found us absolutely without any formulated program of action, even military or agricultural, let alone anything of comprehensive economic scope. A hysterical effort at improvising a program ensued. We were not yet in the war, and public interest was just roused to the gullible stage. The opportunity for private pickings from public favors was too promising to go by the board. The only prospect opening up lay in the direction of fixation developments, and fixation in the hands of the promoter is one of the most appealing propositions imaginable. Its major requirements are nitrogen and power. With the former inexhaustibly present in the air and the latter inexhaustibly available in the wasting waterpowers of the country, nothing it would seem, could offer greater promise. Add to this the reflection that cheap nitrogen means cheap fertilizer, and cheap fertilizer means lowered cost of foodstuffs, and the proposition broadcasted over the country is complete. Out of the confusion of interests, public, political, and private, a program was finally evolved, following our entry into the war, calling for the erection of a series of fixation plants with an aggregate producing capacity of around 85,000 tons of fixed nitrogen annually. For the present is must suffice to say that the war ended before any of these had reached the producing stage, and the United States, like Great Britain, depended on imports.

The charts comprising Figure 16 show the influence of the war in the development of nitrogen distributively among the countries concerned. The Scandinavian developments, while actuated from wholly commercial motives, were so largely influenced by the politically stimulated market that they may well enough be included in that general class of politically controlled developments. The same is true for the neutral countries in general. Figure 18, based on the best information obtainable, is designed to bring out the collective influence of the war in contributing to the world’s supply. Organic nitrogen is disregarded both because it involves too many uncertainties and because the wartime emphasis was all in the direction of chemical nitrogen. This figure takes into consideration only the actual production and leaves out what was in process of construction when the war ended. Accordingly, while in one respect it overrates the effect of the war by including strictly commercial operations that very possibly might have transpired anyway, in another it underrates the situation by disregarding developments like those in this country. The best that can be done is to consider these as balancing each other, which, all things considered, is probably fair enough for all practical purposes. Taken on this basis, the net effect of the war, it will be observed, was to swell the production of fixed nitrogen some 40 or 50 per cent. above the figures indicated for the normal rate of expansion.

Thus the wartime shortage was made up; but all this is history. Now that the war is over, the question arises as to whether the world is due to face the situation in reverse. In making ready for war, and finally in meeting its demands, has the world been building up a 50 per cent. over-production beyond the needs of peace? Offhand, the answer would seem to be in the affirmative, but the question is not one that can be answered offhand. Agriculture is capable of absorbing an indefinite amount of nitrogen, and the war has wrought a lasting change in the agricultural situation. The changed agricultural conditions make room for much, perhaps for all, of the increment to nitrogen production. The development cannot be sustained, however, on its present arbitrary preferential basis of political expediency. Least of all can it be sustained on that basis in this country. Normally, we do not and can not be made to think in terms of war. The reason is evident enough, and its recurrent force is already apparent. Distasteful as the fact may be in some of its extremes of application, the only rational procedure is to accept it and fashion our measures of economic preparedness so that the normal activities of peace will keep our economic forces exercised and in trim for the test of war. It was recognized all along before the war that without an assured source of nitrogen supply, our system of defense was hollow; but we succeeded in building up no means of supply in direct response to political needs. We managed to get comfortably started during the war, but it remains to be seen to what extent this artificially nourished development is fitted to withstand the bitter strife of competition ahead.

COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF NITROGEN CONTROL

Free nitrogen, it will be recalled, has no economic significance. To be available in the industrial arts it must be in a state of chemical combination. The form of compound is of secondary importance, since this may be modified more or less readily to suit the need, but its value is conditioned in terms of its availability in the form of nitrogen compounds. In consequence, the several sources are classifiable industrially under three heads:

Natural compounds--nitrogen occurring naturally in the form of marketable compounds.

By-product compounds--nitrogen rendered available incidentally in the course of operations otherwise directed.

Fixation compounds--nitrogen whose availability is dependent on special fixation treatment.

=Natural Compounds.=--Chile nitrate is the outstanding representative of the natural compounds. The guano industry, or what there is left of it, and a few other odds and ends of production from organic sources, belong here as well, but their combined output is so relatively small that the Chilean industry comprises what amounts to a monopoly of the natural resources. It is not operated as such, however, but by private capital, which owns and operates the oficinas, paying the Chilean government a royalty or export tax amounting to about $11.20 per ton. British and Chilean interests share about equally in making up the far greater part of the capital invested. The balance is largely German and American. The total capitalization in 1909 amounted to approximately $134,000,000, representing an actual valuation of about $30,000,000. Various efforts on the part of the commercial interests involved to effect combinations for the purpose of stabilizing production have been attempted, but have not been entirely successful, and the general tendency has all along been toward overproduction.

The operations, as already outlined on page 424, are crude, and the cost of production is correspondingly high, amounting to around $25 to $30 per ton at seaboard, inclusive of the $11 export tax. The nitrate is marketed largely through commission houses. The American situation is mostly in the hands of three companies, W. R. Grace & Co., E. I. du Pont de Nemours Powder Co., and Wessel, Duval & Co. The magnitude of the Chilean industry as a whole and its relative importance are shown in Figures 16 to 18 and Table 66.

=By-product Compounds.=--To this class of compounds belong, with the few minor exceptions already noted, the nitrogenous products of organic derivation as a whole, and those from carboniferous sources such as coal and oil shale. From the former source comes a miscellany of organic refuse resulting from activities dealing with animal, vegetable, and fish products, and carrying nitrogen in the form of organic ammoniates commonly left as such for use in agriculture. From the latter the nitrogen recovered is all chemical nitrogen in the form of ammonia or ammonium salts, mostly ammonium sulphate, and is available in all capacities.

The organic production is impossible of definite analysis from any angle. The lack of systematically compiled records, and back of that the miscellaneous largely decentralized character of the output, along with the fact that the producing costs are for the most part indistinguishable, leaves altogether too much to the imagination. Much of the supply is derived from connections of sanitation, especially of local sanitation, such as the rural practice, for which there is no measure whatever. Another prominent source of supply is represented in what is known as tankage, the refuse from animal-rendering plants; but here too the issue is lost in the scattering of the production, the indefiniteness of composition, and the fact that not all of the product is used as a source of nitrogen, some of it going into the preparation of animal food. The same is true of cottonseed meal and various other less prominent forms of organic waste resulting from industrial activities. Fish scrap and slaughter-house refuse from meat packing also contribute prominently and at the same time rather more definitely to the supply of agricultural nitrogen; but even here adequate figures are not available. The Federal Trade Commission undertook to analyze the 1913 consumption, with results given in the following table:

ESTIMATED CONSUMPTION OF NITROGEN IN COMMERCIAL FERTILIZERS FOR THE YEAR 1913

-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------
|Fertilizing|Consumption| Content | Units
Materials | substance | (tons) |(per cent.)|consumed[157]
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------
Nitrate of soda | Ammonia | 260,000 | 18.0 | 4,680,000
Sulphate of ammonia| Ammonia | 130,000 | 25.0 | 3,250,000
Cyanamid | Ammonia | 15,488 | 18.0 | 278,784
High-grade tankage | Ammonia | 210,000 | 10.5 | 2,205,000
Concentrated | Ammonia | 18,351 | 14.5 | 266,090
Dried blood | Ammonia | 40,000 | 17.0 | 680,000
Dried fish scrap | Ammonia | 50,000 | 11.0 | 550,000
Cottonseed meal | Ammonia | 660,000 | 7.5 | 950,000
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------
Total | ... | ... | ... | 16,859,874
-------------------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-------------

[157] A unit is 1 per cent. of a ton, or 20 pounds.

This estimate, however, takes into account only the more strictly industrial sources, leaving rural sanitation and the like out of the reckoning.

Aside from the conversion of organic ammoniates, which is practiced on a large scale only in a few instances, notably that of the Paris system of sewage disposal, four general types of industrial operation figure more or less in the production of by-product ammonia. They include coal distillation, bone carbonization, oil-shale distillation, and blast-furnace operations. The American production, however, is all derived from the first two types. Both the others are active producers abroad, especially in Scotland, but neither of them has as yet obtained a foothold in this country. The American recovery in connection with bone carbonization is of minor consequence. Practically the whole supply comes from gas works and by-product coking operations. Figure 17, in the shaded area bearing the designation “ammonium sulphate production,” shows the magnitude and trend of the production from year to year since 1900.

The organic nitrogen recovered in all of the various by-product connections taken together probably constitutes 40 to 50 per cent. of the total supply. Coal product ammonia in this country adds another 12 to 15 per cent. So over half of our supply is of by-product derivation. The domestic output is supplemented in the case of the organic form by considerable importations from South America, and, until interfered with by the war, small amounts of ammonium sulphate were imported annually from Europe. Essentially, however, the by-product supply is of domestic origin. Despite its magnitude, it occupies an anomalous sort of position industrially. It is recovered incidentally for what it is worth, and sold for what it will bring. The cost of production is largely charged off against the major operations with which its recovery is associated, and the returns are credited in conformance, as a saving in the cost of the major operations. This is equally true whether the source be that of the domestic animal on the farm, a coke oven, or a packing house.

The industrial output is built up as a sequence to industrial concentration. This is evidenced all down the line, notably in the output of coke-oven ammonia from the steel industry and in that of organic ammoniates from the meat-packing industry. It is this influence of co-ordinated industrial concentration, along with the call for the major operations, that controls the supply of by-product nitrogen; so the development and handling of the industrial output comes naturally to be largely in the hands of trade combinations. Thus, the coal-product ammonia situation is largely at the disposal of the Barrett Co., the tankage and other animal-product ammoniates gather for disposal at the hands of the packing interests, and the nitrogenous fertilizers from cottonseed are for the most part prepared and marketed by interests subsidiary to the Cotton Oil Co.

The manufacturing interests involved are concerned primarily in the manufacture of other than nitrogen products. The by-product nitrogen recovered has to compete for its market against what comes from the other two industrial classes of supply, and its price goes just low enough to enable it to do so. The limits set in the incidental character of the output leave no special incentive to carry the price competition further. Whatever additional latitude of advantage as to cost of production it possesses goes not to promoting a further reduction in the price of nitrogen but to lowering costs with reference to the major theme of production. Gas-house ammonia, for instance, does not affect the nitrogen market so much as it does the cost of gas, and the organic ammoniates recovered in connection with meat packing have not lowered fertilizer costs so much as they have kept down the cost of meat to the consumer. Thus the by-product class of supply, though the leading one in the point of magnitude, and by far the cheapest to produce, has little to do with determining the price of nitrogen. The selling price of by-product nitrogen is determined by the price the product from competing sources brings. In this country it is controlled by the price of Chile nitrate, and not, as commonly imputed, by the trade combinations that develop and handle the output.

=Fixation Compounds.=--Nitrogen has five general habits of combination: with oxygen, giving rise to nitric acid and its retinue of nitrate salts; with hydrogen, giving ammonia and the ammonium salts; with carbon, to form cyanogen and the cyanides; with basic elements, yielding nitrides; and organically, in the form of organic ammoniates. Various projects have been advanced for turning these to account in the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. For the most part they have met with little or no practical success, but there are exceptions to the rule of failure in all five directions.

_Direct Oxidation--Arc Fixation._--Nitrogen does not oxidize at all readily under any ordinary conditions, but its natural indisposition to combine with oxygen may be overcome by passing a mixture of the two gases through an electric arc. The atmosphere furnishes the nitrogen and oxygen ready mixed, so all that is needed in the way of raw materials is an abundant power supply. Arc fixation was developed in Norway, where the possibilities in the way of hydro-electric power give the best setting to be found anywhere in the world. Efforts to introduce it elsewhere have resulted unsatisfactorily, and arc fixation has made relatively little headway, as may be deduced from Table 66 and Figure 18. The reason is two-fold. So far, its use of power has proved uneconomical, and its product unsatisfactory. The former of these two objections depends for its force on the demand for power, but the latter is more decisive. The immediate end product is nitric acid, which is both difficult to transport and limited as to use. To be put in shape for agricultural use it must be neutralized in the form of a nitrate salt. Limestone is the only cheap neutralizing agent. This gives a salt, calcium nitrate, which absorbs moisture, cakes, and is thus unsuited to the American agricultural practice of machine drilling. An experimental plant near Seattle, Wash., aims to overcome this difficulty by turning out its arc product in the form of sodium nitrate, but the project is of no commercial significance as it stands.

_Ammonia Fixation._--Nitrogen is no more disposed to combine of its own accord with hydrogen to give ammonia than with oxygen to give nitric acid. In the case of the Haber process, the only synthetic ammonia process that has stood the test of industrial application, the native indisposition to combine is overcome by subjecting a properly proportioned mixture of the two gases to heat and pressure in the presence of a catalyzer. This process was instituted in Germany shortly before the outbreak of the war, and as shown in Figure 16 and Table 66 has developed steadily since then. Little seems to be known as to the efficiency of the German Haber practice. Apparently, careful manipulation is necessary to obtain results. This means a skilled attention, which is incompatible with mechanical volume production and is thus unsuited to American practice. What aims to be an adaptation to American conditions was worked out by the General Chemical Co., and a plant with a rated capacity of 60,000 pounds of anhydrous ammonia per day was projected at Sheffield, Ala., at the instance of the Government. The plant was completed, but before it could be tuned up for actual production the war ended.

_Cyanide Fixation._--Nitrogen, in passing through a red-hot mixture of finely divided soda ash, coke, and iron, reacts with the sodium and carbon to give sodium cyanide. This principle of fixation is being extensively experimented with, but has not been developed commercially, except in a small plant with a rated daily capacity of 10 tons of sodium cyanide at Saltville, Va.

_Cyanamid Fixation._--Hot calcium carbide will absorb nitrogen, forming a compound of calcium, carbon, and nitrogen, according to the formula Ca CN₂, known as cyanamid. The cyanamid process, based on this reaction, has been extensively developed, far more so than any other of the various processes, as will be seen by referring to Figure 16 and Table 66. Offhand, it looks to be the most adaptable and consequently the most promising of the lot commercially. In this connection, however, it is interesting to examine the several charts of its growth in the warring countries given in Figure 16. In none of these is the showing indicative of a strong, healthy development. Worst of all is the case of Germany, with the contrast offered in the Haber and cyanamid charts. Until the war, cyanamid manufacture was unable to obtain a competitive foothold in the United States, although a small plant has been in operation at Niagara Falls in Canada for some years. The problem it has faced is similar to that already chronicled for arc fixation, in that it draws heavily on power in the preparation of the necessary carbide, and the cost of power in this country has been prohibitive. Under the stress of the wartime demand for nitrogen, however, the Government contracted for the erection of three plants--one at Muscle Shoals, Ala., one near Toledo, Ohio, and one near Cincinnati, Ohio, with a total rated capacity amounting to 220,000 tons of ammonium nitrate per year. The work on all three was well under way, but none of the plants had reached the producing stage when the signing of the armistice brought the nitrate activities of the War Department to an end.

_Nitride Fixation._--The only process of any prominence aiming to fix nitrogen in the nitride form is one developed by the Aluminum Company of America. This has for its working principle the fact that a mixture of alumina and carbon, highly heated, will absorb nitrogen by reacting to give aluminum nitride. The nitride when heated with caustic soda gives its end product in the form of pure ammonia. The outstanding difficulty encountered in applying this process commercially seems to be that of providing a furnace capable of standing the temperature requirements. At all events the process has not succeeded in making good industrially.

_Bacterial Fixation._--The artificial attempts at fixation have been directed almost wholly toward employing chemical principles. In view of the difficulties experienced and the uncertain value of the results as a whole, it is interesting and perhaps highly significant to reflect that after all, as indicated in Figure 15, inorganic chemical principles seemingly have little to do with developing the natural supply, probably because of the activities of nitrifying bacteria. Little attention has been given to the possibilities in this direction. This is only natural so far as commercially actuated research is concerned, since it does not lead in the definite direction of patent rights; but the failure to institute an adequate investigation governmentally can be attributed only to lack of comprehension with reference to the scope of the nitrogen issue as brought out under “General Aspects of Control” on pages 425 to 433. The subject has received just enough attention to show that bacterial fixation represents a tremendous field of grossly neglected possibilities.

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS AND CHANGES IN PRACTICE

The whole matter of fixation must be regarded as in process of development. True, it was instituted some fifteen or twenty years ago and has grown to represent the largest producing source of chemical nitrogen, with operations in practically all the important industrial countries in the world and with responsible financial backing. But no one can examine the charts in Figure 16 without recognizing the premature, mushroom quality of the upgrowth, induced primarily in response to the political conditions leading to and through the war. This is especially true for the American situation. When the war broke out, fixation here was confessedly still in the dependent stage of its development, unable in every effort it had made to stand alone industrially. In the main, the developments that have transpired subsequently have followed along pre-existing lines. In so far as they have done so, little actual economic significance is to be attached to them. For the rest, the new developments, all that can be said at this juncture is that they are disappointingly meager.

Just one wartime achievement, the oxidation of ammonia, stands out as affording a worth that is unmistakably clear. The nitrogen situation, it will be recalled, has two aspects, the military and the agricultural. The military focus is on nitric acid, and the readiest means of insuring a supply; the agricultural focus is on ammonium compounds or their equivalent in neutral nitrogen salts and the most economical means of supply. Here, then, is a parting of the ways to expediency, and it is at this juncture that with military influences to the fore the nitrogen developments of the past few years were led off on an uneconomical tangent of military control. The Bureau of Mines, however, taking up the work of others, has perfected a simple, effective means for oxidizing ammonia to nitric acid. This, beyond question, is the most important contribution of the day. Its significance may perhaps best be brought out graphically in the accompanying sketch.

Ammonia oxidation, it will be observed from the foregoing sketch, gives a means of supplying the military requirement from the direct line of agricultural efficiency. From the strictly military viewpoint, it has the objection of being a roundabout procedure. The dotted line of direct military procedure, however, has no peace-time function, and consequently cannot be maintained in time of peace in trim for war, but must instead be built up expressly to meet wartime exigencies. We have had an illustration of what this means in the way of time and money, and this one ought to suffice. The agricultural channel, once built up on a basis of economic efficiency, is open at all times. At the most, all that is required is to keep an eye to the emergency needs in the way of oxidation equipment, a relatively simple matter. Thus, instead of the precarious procedure of trusting to luck which characterized our pre-war attitude toward nitrogen on the one hand, or of attempting the impossible in the way of maintaining a military program of industrial procedure in time of peace on the other, all that is needed is a constructive program devoted expressly to the interests of economic efficiency.

THE NITROGEN OUTLOOK

There is no import duty on nitrogen, nor is there likely to be any, for nitrogen is an important cog in the mechanism of food supply, and the peacetime emphasis, reversing the wartime order, is primarily on cheapness and only secondarily on the point of origin. Accordingly, looking ahead, the American market conditions, once world trade is fully restored, are due to reflect the world conditions. As indicated in Figure 18, the sudden ending of the war, with its calling off of the military requirement which had been building up steadily since even before the outbreak of hostilities in 1914, left the world with a producing capacity 30 to 40 per cent. above normal. To what extent this apparent overproduction, amounting to some half million tons of nitrogen, will prove real is impossible to foretell; not all of it certainly, for under the stimulus of a food shortage the curve of normal consumption will doubtless bend upward. On the other hand, however, there is the producing capacity of the plants not yet in operation to be taken into consideration. Whatever may be the capacity of agriculture to absorb from the surplus, it cannot be expected to take up the full amount immediately or without special inducement. The inference follows that price and production will come down, to stimulate and co-ordinate with the increase in demand. Where the meeting point will be between the upcurve of demand and the downcurve of production it is impossible to predict. It is of interest, however, to figure in review on how the three types of industrial source, the natural, the by-product, and the fixation types, are equipped for the very evident strife of competition implied in the situation.

With the development of fixation, there have been a lot of unfounded statements to the effect that the day of Chile nitrate is passing. Whenever a synthetic development comes to the fore, a peculiar fallacy of reasoning is indulged in which ignores the fact of inherent natural worth, disregards the inescapable cost of its duplication, and regards the synthetic achievement as giving open sesame to the natural treasure. By way of substantiation in the case of nitrogen, the cost of producing Chile nitrate is high, amounting to around $30 per ton. This, however, is largely contributed to by the unsystematized crudity of the operations, by the high export tax, and by overcapitalization. But these, it will be observed, are variable factors, susceptible of indefinite modification in keeping with the need. Chile nitrate has never made any pretense of competing against by-product nitrogen, with its advantages in the way of low incidental producing costs and proximity to the market. The discrepancy between the by-product supply and the total demand for nitrogen has all along comprised the field of opportunity opening to Chile nitrate. In this its only noteworthy competitor is the fixation industry.

The fixation sources are impossible of analysis on a definite basis of cost. Too many variable factors and uncertainties are involved. Repeated attempts have been made, but all they have served to bring out is that under certain conditions, as for instance of power supply, and for certain express purposes, one form of project has an apparent margin of advantage over another, and vice versa for other conditions; but that at best the cost of production, if not actually prohibitive, is dangerously close to the normal pre-war price of fixed nitrogen. Back of it all is the fact that fixation has to deal with the problem of overcoming the native chemical inertia of nitrogen, and the problem has not yet been solved at all convincingly. Always the solution advanced has called for some special measure of relief from industrial competition, whether natural, as in the case of the Scandinavian power supply, or political, as in the case of the American and German projects.

Fixation has been widely heralded of recent years as due not only to emancipate the world from its dependence upon the Chilean source, but to reduce materially the cost of nitrogenous fertilizer, hence the cost of food production, to the marked betterment of living conditions as well. In its promise of political and economic betterment in one, it has claimed the attention of all. However, the claim of special economic advantage coming from an industry barely, if at all, able to meet conditions even as they are, has been overdrawn.

This does not aim to imply that there is nothing but failure ahead for fixation in the test of competition. It has its possibilities of development into something commercially and economically as well as politically worth while, but the existing hothouse order of upgrowth is unquestionably due for a lot of training down, and much that is worthless is as certainly due to go. The American developments have a particularly inauspicious economic setting in the prevailing scale of costs. The only saving alternative for them would seem to be in one form or another of federal provision for their continued support on some such basis as that on which they were projected, and this is unlikely, for there is no apparent reason. True, lowered nitrogen costs tend to make for a lowering in the cost of foodstuffs, but so, for that matter, would a lowering in the cost of agricultural implements, and any arguments that apply in the case of nitrogen apply as equally for potash, for phosphate, for agricultural implements, for coal--in fact for industry in general.

With reference to by-product nitrogen the situation is very different. In general, the by-product sources are of an order such that they were not materially affected one way or the other by the war, and consequently are not due to be materially affected in the process of readjustment, except in the case of coke-oven ammonia, where the temporary slump in the steel industry will result in a temporary slump of probably 15 to 20 per cent. from the 1918 output. Of special significance in connection with what lies on beyond for the by-production of nitrogen is its relationship to the progress of industrial co-ordination. The whole current trend of industrialism, as represented in integration, volume production, and the like, is actuated in the interests of co-ordination and the overcoming of lost motion; and nitrogen comes in for an important share in these developments.

With reference to the organic group of compounds, the outlook for the future is as uncertain as are the actual conditions of today. The centralized development of meat packing, of animal-rendering establishments, and of cotton ginning gave rise in their time to highly important recoveries of nitrogenous waste; but with the forward progress of developments this usage in turn is giving way to a more advanced order. Cottonseed as a fertilizer is giving place to a cottonseed-products industry; tankage as a fertilizer is giving place to the artificial compounding of animal food; horses, an important contributor of agricultural nitrogen in times past, are yielding much of their place in the sun to the automotive engine. Meanwhile, with the factor of dilution to be overcome, our sewage disposal is employed to pollute streams and destroy the fish supply instead of being put to useful ends. So it goes. Developments are on foot that lead in both directions, and there is no telling how the balance is due to shift. Probably the best guess is that relatively at least it will be downward rather than upward.

The outlook for by-product ammonia is more definite. Ammonia is the end point of material refinement; so here the nitrogen developments hold all they get, rather than go on to lose out again in a further refinement of usage, as in the case of the organic group. The output has increased consistently and rapidly, owing to the transition from beehive to by-product coking operations, to the progress of centralization and co-ordination; in other words, with reference to coke manufacture. Even now, less than half of the coal coked is treated in the retort oven; but the beehive oven is out of the line of progress and is due to be entirely displaced. Also, the industry is still expanding as the process of transition, with its separate potentiality for doubling the present output of coal-product ammonia, goes forward.

So far, the recovery of by-products in connection with the use of coal has been confined in the one direction of coke making, along with the analogous procedure of gas manufacture. But the development which has thus started in the coke industry will not stop there. The loss of motion resulting from lack of co-ordination in the use of coal is just as great in other directions as in that of coke making, and the advantages of integral usage may confidently be expected to assert themselves. Already projects of the kind are coming under serious contemplation in proposals such as those for furnishing gas to cities, for employing by-product operations located at the mine in support of the waning natural-gas supply, and for integrated heat, light, and power projects operating on coal with by-product recovery. Meanwhile, the motor-fuel situation is suggestive of interesting developments ahead. There is every reason to believe that the petroleum resources can not continue to meet the growing demand, in fact, that the occasion for support is already at hand. Whatever the nature of these supporting developments, whether they take the form of a shale-oil industry or what, it seems certain they will usher in an important source of by-product nitrogen.

Figure 17 summarizes the American situation with reference to chemical nitrogen, as does Figure 18 in less detail that for the world. Organic nitrogen is omitted, partly because of the lack of information, partly because the issues more directly involved in the situation as it stands are those of chemical nitrogen.

SUMMARY

Nitrogen, itself, is an inert gas of no particular use, but nitrogenous compounds are necessary to agriculture, to refrigeration, to munitions manufacture, and to the applications of chemistry in general. In the native gaseous state, it makes up about four-fifths of the atmosphere, and combined it occurs as nitrate minerals, as organic compounds, and in carboniferous deposits. Atmospheric nitrogen is of use only after it has been artificially compounded or fixed, a proposition which the natural inertness of nitrogen renders difficult and expensive. The only mineral deposits of consequence are those comprising the nitrate fields of northern Chile. The organic resources include all manner of animal and vegetable refuse. Coal-tar ammonia from retort-coke and gas manufacture, along with some shale-oil ammonia, makes up practically the whole supply derived from the carboniferous sources. This range of associations, including animal, vegetable, mineral, and atmospheric sources, transgresses all established rules of resource occurrence, and consequently all regularly constituted research. As a result the nitrogen resources and their needs for attention have never been comprehensively investigated. This became strikingly apparent when the war, threatening swift disaster in the guise of a nitrogen shortage, showed us up to be quite devoid of any systematic nitrogen program and precipitated an hysterical effort to devise a makeshift one instead. The atmosphere was found to provide the only independent source of supply available on an emergency rating; so, following the lead of the European countries, several plants for the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen were projected governmentally.

Industrially, the nitrogen sources may be classified as natural, by-product, and fixation. The natural supply is almost wholly in the form of sodium nitrate from the Chile nitrate deposits. These are controlled and operated by British, Chilean, German, and American capital. The American imports are largely handled by three companies, whose system of control is effected through the medium of shipping and warehouse facilities.

The by-product sources include nearly all of the organic nitrogen used, and the nitrogen from coal and oil shale as well. The supply is governed as to magnitude by the progress of industrial co-ordination through the medium of centralization in the preparing of animal, vegetable, and coal products. Thus the development and marketing of the by-product supply tends naturally to gather to industrial combinations. These, however, are natural developments, not developments artificially created in the interest of price control. The price of by-product nitrogen is controlled not by trade combinations, but by the price of the product from other sources, which is to say, by the price of Chile nitrate. Beyond that, the advantages accruing in the way of low-producing costs do not go wholly to commercial profit but to the saving of costs with reference to the major production, as for instance in the case of gas-works ammonia, which makes its chief contribution toward lowering the price of gas to the consumer. The rapid development of fixation is attributable largely to political influences, activated by conditions leading to and through the war. There are a number of projects for fixing nitrogen, but only three have any genuine measure of industrial achievement to their credit, are fixation in Norway, Haber synthetic ammonia fixation in Germany, and cyanamid fixation in a number of places. Three of the four large American plants are of the last-named order; the other is a synthetic ammonia proposition. All four were contracted for by the Government, and so far as fixation can be said to have gained an industrial foothold in the United States it is wholly in response to the dictates of political control.

Probably rather less than half of the nitrogen consumed is organically associated, and rather more than half of it chemically combined. Practically all of the organic nitrogen and around one-fourth of the chemical nitrogen is of domestic by-product derivation. So far, the balance has been supplied from Chile nitrate, supplemented by small imports of guano, animal refuse, by-product ammonia, and cyanamid from abroad.

There is no apparent likelihood of this adjustment being materially affected as an immediate outcome of developments with reference to fixation. These have shown themselves to be of the utmost political significance as affording an unlimited, independent source of nitrogen supply. Their genuine economic significance at the present stage of enforced expansion, however, is questionable. In this country, especially, the scale of costs gives an unpromising setting. The by-product sources growing out of centralized industrial co-ordination are in line with the trend of modern industrialism and may be looked to as assuring a steady increase in yield, especially if the process of industrial evolution in the direction of co-ordinated economic efficiency is adequately cultivated instead of being interfered with. In this same connection the most significant accomplishment recorded for nitrogen, lies in the working out of a means for the oxidation of by-product ammonia, thus rendering the growing by-product supply available for the full range of nitrogen uses.

With reference to the economic and political aspects of the outlook ahead, all else is obscured and lost to view in the pressing need for a constructive program worked out on a comprehensive basis, in keeping with the comprehensiveness of the resources themselves, with which to supplant the uneconomical makeshift program brought into being by the war. The program called for is one calculated to bring out, and bring out co-ordinately, the best there is in bacterial as well as chemical fixation, in the industrial by-product sources of organic and chemical nitrogen, and in the province of sanitation.