In the early 1900s, German chemists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch developed a way to synthesize ammonia from atmospheric nitrogen and methane-derived hydrogen. The method became a vital step in manufacturing not only fertilizers but also explosives. Haber likened the process to making “bread from air” (Haber and Bosch are both winners of Nobel Prizes in Chemistry). In his Inaugural Article (1), the chemist Helmut Schwarz has himself devised a method to “make bread from air,” synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen using the metal tantalum as a catalyst. A professor of chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin, Schwarz has uncovered the mechanisms of catalysis at an atomic level. He has identified so-called “aristocratic atoms,” which act as the workhorses of chemical reactions and has deepened our understanding of organometallic processes. Schwarz has also served as President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which supports international partnerships between scientists from Germany and around the world. PNAS recently spoke to Schwarz, who was elected as a Foreign Associate of the National Academy of Sciences in 2018, about his current research.
Helmut Schwarz. Image courtesy of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation/David Ausserhofer.
PNAS:In your Inaugural Article (1), you …
