1920.] Report OF THE Nitrogen Products Committee. 1113 



It was considered desirable at the end of 1916 that the Com- 

 mittee should submit practical proposals at an early date, 

 and an Interim Report was accordingly issued in February, 

 1 91 7. A note on the main recommendations of this Keport 

 was published in the issue oi this Journal for February, 1918, 

 page 1254. 



The Committee have now issued their Final Report (Cmd. 482, 

 1920),* a comprehensive document of some 350 pages. They 

 review in some detail the general situation of the nitrogen 

 products industry before and during the War, and express 

 opinions as to the post-war prospects. A large portion of 

 the Report is devoted to the industry in its relation to agricul- 

 ture, and in view of the increasing use of nitrogen as a fertiliser 

 some of the statements made are deserving of special notice. 



Influence of the War. — In their opening remarks the Com- 

 mittee state that the last years of the war situation have been 

 responsible for a fundamental alteration in the status of agricul- 

 ture in the United Kingdom. The present policy of food 

 production has already had the effect of increasing the home 

 demand for nitrogenous fertilisers to an extent far exceeding 

 the pre-war consumption, and the maintenance of this policy 

 after the War, or its further development, is vitally intercon- 

 nected with the future of the nitrogen industry. The importance 

 of combined nitrogen in agriculture has long been recognised, 

 but under war conditions a very large proportion of the world's 

 supplies of combined nitrogen had been diverted from 

 agriculture to the production of munitions, thus affording a 

 significant lesson as to the extent to which the security of a 

 nation may depend upon its ability to procure or produce an 

 adequate supply of essential nitrogen products. The con- 

 tinuous increase in the world's demand and the constant 

 upward trend of the price of combined nitrogen, however, 

 have led to the invention and development of processes for 

 fixing atmospheric nitrogen, thus opening up a practically 

 unlimited source of supply. The Committee enumerate and 

 deal in detail with the four principal processes, viz., the by- 

 product ammonia process, the retort process, nitrogen fixation 

 processes, and the ammonia oxidation process. 



Post-war Position. — In regard to the post-war demand the 

 Committee express the opinion that the requirements of agi'icul- 

 ture are certain to be much larger than formerly, the imperative 

 need for maintaining and extending the world's production of 



♦ Obtainable from H.M. Stationery Office, Imptrial House, Kingsway, 

 Londc n, W.C. 2 



