NITROGEN FACTORY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3755, 2 March 1926, Page 82

NITROGEN FACTORY.

HARNESSING THE AIR. SYDNEY, February 11. Although many nitrogen concerns are operating on the Continent, the opening up of a big stretch of country just outside the metropolis of Sydney and the proposed establishment of a factory there, and with it later a big well-ordered garden village for the employees and their families for the artificial production of nitrogen compounds from the air, will witness a new phase of industrial development ir. Australia. The idea seems a bit fanciful, ofharnessing and commercialising the air, which over every mile of the surface of the earth contains 20,000,000 tons of nitrogen awaiting utilisation. But it i 6 claimed that'what has successfully been done abroad can be done equally successfully here, under suitable atmospheric conditions, by tho Anglo-German concern which is behind tho enterprise. The object is the manufacture of fertilising and other material and the manufacture on a large scale also of power fuel, as a by-product of nitrogen. Melbourne can thank its unfortunate climate for being passed by in connection with this big venture, which it is etated will employ moro than 3000 people .when it is in full swing. The intention originally was to establish tho enterprise in Melbourne, but there is, tho promoter says, something in the atmospheric condition here that caused the choice of tho promoters to fall upon Sydney. Now that nitrogen is to bo produced from the air, and turned by various processes into commercial products, one wonders what will be the next surprise chemistry and the laboratories will have for us.