Robert Le Rossignol (27 April 1884 – 26 June 1976) was a British chemist. He is most known for his work with

Fritz Haber Fritz Haber (; 9 December 186829 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen ...

on the fixation of nitrogen from atmospheric air, the

Haber process The Haber process, also called the Haber–Bosch process, is an artificial nitrogen fixation process and is the main industrial procedure for the production of ammonia today. It is named after its inventors, the German chemists Fritz Haber and C ...

. He was born in

Saint Helier St Helier (; Jèrriais: ; french: Saint-Hélier) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands in the English Channel. St Helier has a population of 35,822 – over one-third of the total population of Jersey – ...

Jersey Jersey ( , ; nrf, Jèrri, label=Jèrriais ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey (french: Bailliage de Jersey, links=no; Jèrriais: ), is an island country and self-governing Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency near the coast of north-west F ...

Channel Islands The Channel Islands ( nrf, Îles d'la Manche; french: îles Anglo-Normandes or ''îles de la Manche'') are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They include two Crown Dependencies: the Bailiwick of Jersey, ...

, and attended school there. He matriculated from the University of London in 1901 and graduated from

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

in 1905 where he remained, becoming a member of the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and a Fellow of the

Chemical Society of London The Chemical Society was a scientific society formed in 1841 (then named the Chemical Society of London) by 77 scientists as a result of increased interest in scientific matters. Chemist Robert Warington was the driving force behind its creation. ...

. In 1908–1909, he worked with

in Germany on the difficult problem of demonstrating ammonia synthesis from air, eventually producing a tabletop apparatus that worked at 200 atmospheres pressure. Haber was awarded the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

for his discovery that virtually "made bread from the air" and recognized the assistance he'd received from Le Rossignol, whose name appears on Haber's patents for the process. He was interned in Germany in 1914 at the outbreak of the first World War, but was released to work for the

Auergesellschaft The industrial firm ''Auergesellschaft'' was founded in 1892 with headquarters in Berlin. Up to the end of World War II, ''Auergesellschaft'' had manufacturing and research activities in the areas of gas mantles, luminescence, rare earths, radioac ...

during the war.Dietrich Stoltzenberg, ''Fritz Haber: Chemist, Nobel Laureate, German, Jew'' Chemical Heritage Foundation, 2004, , page 63 He returned to the UK after the war. He joined the

General Electric Company The General Electric Company (GEC) was a major British industrial conglomerate involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications, and engineering. The company was founded in 1886, was Britain's largest private employer with over 250 ...

(UK) research laboratory, where he remained for the rest of his career, working on

thermionic valves A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as a ...

. He lived in

Penn, Buckinghamshire Penn is a village and civil parish in Buckinghamshire, England, about north-west of Beaconsfield and east of High Wycombe. The parish's cover Penn village and the hamlets of Penn Street, Knotty Green, Forty Green, Penn, Forty Green and Winchm ...

and was a noted philanthropist using the royalty income he received from the Haber patent. His two sons were both killed during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

References

British chemists People from Saint Helier 1884 births 1976 deaths Alumni of University College London {{UK-scientist-stub