The Byrkeland-Eyde Process
20-03-1903 (Norway)
1 Page, handwritten, pre-printed form on paper; 33,02 × 21,59 cm
National
Archives of Norway
S-1654/Dda/193B/Patent no.12961
This bland and bureaucratic-looking document marks an important moment in the history of industrial processes, agricultural progress and hence food production and the living conditions of countless human beings. It is a patent application submitted by Kristian Birkeland on 20 February 1903.
Kristian Olaf Bernhard Birkeland (1867-1917) was a Norwegian scientist who made technical and scientific contributions to a number of different fields. He is known, in particular, for having identified the so-called Birkeland currents.Kristian Birkeland proposes a novel industrial process for the production of nitrogen-based fertilizers. The idea had been developed by Kristian Birkeland and Sam Eyde.
The essence of the process is to convert atmospheric nitrogen (N2) into nitric acid (HNO3). The resultant nitric acid was then used as a source of nitrate, NO3-. The process requires a specific plasma arc, proposed here in a design which makes it economically viable for large-scale manufacture.
Birkeland thus opened the way for the industrial production of fertilisers, a technological advance that had an enormous impact on agriculture. In the following decades, other energy-efficient processes were designed and constructed. But the Birkeland-Eyde electric arc furnace, based on the patent from 1903, remains a ground-breaking development that had a profound impact.