Fritz Haber was a German chemist whose conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia opened the way for the synthetic fertilizer industry. His study of the combustion of hydrocarbons led to the commercial cracking or fractional distillation of natural oil

... Fritz Haber was a German chemist whose conversion of atmospheric nitrogen to ammonia opened the way for the synthetic fertilizer industry. His study of the combustion of hydrocarbons led to the commercial cracking or fractional distillation of natural oil (petroleum) into its components (for example, diesel, gasoline, and paraffin). In electrochemistry, he was the first to demonstrate that oxidation and reduction take place at the electrodes; from this he developed a general electrochemical theory. At the outbreak of war, the German Army asked the Institute to investigate substitutes for explosive in shells, and poison gas was suggested. Haber, after watching early trials with gas shells, proposed releasing gas from cylinders. He became one of the principals in the German chemical warfare effort, devising weapons and gas masks, leading to protests against his Nobel Prize 1918. Fritz Haber invented the process used all over the world to make ammonia from nitrogen

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