In Figure 1, the words synthesis gas have been shown as the source of two products, ammonia and methanol. It is not quite the same synthesis gas in the two cases, but they are closely related. The mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen described above is the synthesis gas that is the source of methanol. But ammonia requires nitrogen, which is obtained from the producer gas by causing it to undergo the water-gas shift reaction, yielding hydrogen. Ammonia requires much more hydrogen, which is obtained from water gas subjected to the water-gas shift. And so, by appropriate mixing, ammonia synthesis gas of exactly the right composition can be obtained.

The above description is a simplified account of how synthesis gas, either for ammonia or for methanol, is obtained from fossil fuel as a source of energy, but it gives an idea of the versatility of the operations. There are many possible variations in detail, depending largely on the particular fuel that is used. The nitrogen industry, which has grown steadily since shortly after World War I, was originally based largely on coke, either from coal or lignite (brown coal). There has been a gradual change to petroleum products as the fossil fuel. As is true with many other branches of the chemical industry, the latest trend is to move to natural gas.

The carbon dioxide removed during the preparation of the synthesis gas can be caused to react with ammonia, often at the same plant, to form urea, CO(NH₂)₂. This is an excellent fertilizer, highly concentrated in nitrogen (46.6 percent), and also useful as an additive in animal feed to provide the nitrogen for formation of meat protein. Urea is also used for an important series of resins and plastics by reaction with formaldehyde, derived from methanol.

Ammonia can be applied as a fertilizer in numerous forms, ranging from the application of liquid ammonia beneath the surface of the soil, or solutions of ammonia in water (also containing other fertilizer ingredients), or as ammonium nitrate, or other products from nitric acid, which itself is derived from ammonia. Ammonia also has other uses within the chemical industry. The small amount of ammonia consumed in the course of making sodium carbonate by the ammonia-soda process formerly amounted to a considerable volume. Ammonia is used in one process for making rayon, as a refrigerant in large commercial refrigeration establishments, and as a convenient portable source of hydrogen. Hydrogen can be compressed into cylinders, but ammonia, which forms a liquid on compression, packs far more hydrogen into the same volume; it is decomposed by heat into hydrogen and nitrogen; the nitrogen is used to provide an inert atmosphere for many metallurgical operations.

Nitric acid

By far the most important use of ammonia within the chemical industry is to produce nitric acid (HNO₃). Nitrogen and oxygen can be made to combine directly with one another only with considerable difficulty. A process based on such a direct combination, but employing large quantities of electrical power, was in use in the 1920s and 1930s in Norway, where hydroelectric power is readily available. It has not proved economical in modern conditions.

Ammonia burns in air, or in oxygen, causing the hydrogen atoms to burn off, forming water and leaving free nitrogen. With the aid of a catalyst, platinum with a small percentage of the related metal rhodium, ammonia is oxidized to oxides of nitrogen that can be made to react with water to form nitric acid.

Nitric acid treated with ammonia gives ammonium nitrate, a most important fertilizer. Ammonium nitrate, moreover, is also an important constituent of many explosives. Three fundamental explosive materials are obtained by nitrating (treating with nitric acid, often in a mixture with sulfuric acid): cellulose, obtained from wood, gives cellulose nitrate (formerly called nitrocellulose); glycerol gives glyceryl trinitrate (formerly called nitroglycerin); and toluene gives trinitrotoluene, or TNT. Another explosive ingredient is ammonium picrate, derived from picric acid, the relationship of which appears more clearly in its systematic name, 2,4,6-trinitrophenol.

A minor but still important segment of the explosives industry is the production of detonating agents, or such priming compositions as lead azide [Pb(N₃)₂], silver azide (AgN₃), and mercury fulminate [Hg(ONC)₂]. These are not nitrates or nitro compounds, although some other detonators are, but they all contain nitrogen, and nitric acid is involved in their manufacture.

Related to the explosives are the rocket propellants. A rocket-propelled missile or spacecraft launch vehicle must carry both reactive components (fuel and oxidizer) with it, either in different molecules or in the same molecule. Essentially, rocket propellants consist of an oxidant and a reductant. The oxidant is not necessarily a derivative of nitric acid but may also be liquid oxygen, ozone (O₃), liquid fluorine, or chlorine trifluoride.

Other uses for nitric acid not related to explosives or propellants include the production of cellulose nitrate for use in coatings. Without a pigment it forms a clear varnish much used in furniture finishing. Pigmented, it forms brilliant shiny coatings referred to as lacquers. At one time a fibre similar to rayon was made from cellulose nitrate.

Nitrating benzene (Figure 2) yields nitrobenzene, which can be reduced to aminobenzene, better known as aniline. Aniline can also be made by reacting ammonia with chlorobenzene, obtained from benzene. Benzene and ammonia are required in either case. Similar treatment applied to naphthalene (C₁₀H₈) results in naphthylamine. Both aniline and naphthylamine are the parents of a large number of dyes, but today synthetic dyes are usually petrochemical in origin (see the article dye). Aniline, naphthylamine, and the other dye intermediates lead also to pharmaceuticals, photographic chemicals, and chemicals used in rubber processing.

The above account gives an idea of the importance, not only for fertilizers but for many other products, of the process known as fixation of atmospheric nitrogen—that is, taking nitrogen from the air and converting it into some form in which it is usable. The tremendous increase in the production of fertilizers has led to the erection of huge ammonia plants. The plants must have available a source of fossil fuel, but petroleum and natural gas are easily transported, so that there is a tendency to locate the plants near the ultimate destination of the product.

A typical plant comprises all the equipment for the preparation of the synthesis gas on the requisite scale, along with equipment for purifying the gas. In the synthesis of ammonia (but not of methanol) any compound of oxygen is a poison for (reduces the effectiveness of) the catalyst, and so traces of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide must be carefully removed. Compressing the gas to the desired pressure requires extensive engineering equipment. The higher the pressure the greater the yield but the higher the actual cost of compression. The higher the temperature the lower the yield, but the temperature cannot be lowered indefinitely to obtain better yields because lower temperatures slow down the reaction. The temperature used is of the order of 500° C (930° F). The choice of temperature and of pressure is a carefully worked out compromise to give optimal results. The yield equals the amount of nitrogen and hydrogen that combine to form ammonia in any one pass through the converters. Only a fraction is converted each time, but after each pass the ammonia is removed and the remaining gas is recycled. Atmospheric nitrogen contains about 1 percent argon, a totally inert gas, which must be removed from time to time so that it does not build up in the system indefinitely. There is also usually a nearby nitric acid factory and equipment for producing ammonium nitrate in the exact grain size for convenient application as fertilizer.

The growing plants of agricultural crops do not receive all of their nitrogen from synthetic fertilizer. A certain proportion is supplied by natural means. Some plants, notably beans, have a symbiotic relationship with nitrifying bacteria that are able to “fix” the nitrogen in the air and to combine it into a form available for plant life. This natural synthesis takes place without the necessity for pressures of several hundred atmospheres or of high temperatures. In many laboratory syntheses of natural products, great success has been obtained by quiet reactions, without extreme conditions, by a process of following nature gently, rather than by brute force. Ammonia may some day be synthesized by some process that more nearly resembles the natural way; research is being carried out along these lines, and it may be that a far easier approach to fixation of atmospheric nitrogen will be part of the chemical industry of the future.