HARVARD CHEMIST EMPHASIZES IMPORTANCE OF NEW PROCESS

Production of nitrogen compounds from the air has been made far more economical and efficient by an important chemical discovery, according to a statement made yesterday by Professor Arthur B. Lamb, of the Department of Chemistry of Harvard University.

The new process owes its success to the developed of a new contact material, or catalyst, as it is called, which causes the nitrogen in the air to combine with other substances, especially hydrogen, with greater case and efficiency than has hitherto been the case. Where the catalysts used in other processes will produce 7 or 8 percent of ammonia, this new compound will yield 14 percent, and it has been run continuously for six months without deterioration.

Professor Lamb was director of the Fixed Nitrogen Research Laboratory at Washington, where the catalyst was developed, during and after the war.