Ammonia Activation by a Nickel NCN-Pincer Complex #chempaper 218

This is an interesting article on ammonia activation. We often don't think about how ammonia is needed as a substrate. It is always good to remember. The authors give some spectroscopic evidence on the equilibrium between coordinated ammonia and amido species, but unfortunately there is no crystal structure or an N-H IR stretch reported. 

Walther Nernst and the Development of Physical Chemistry #chempaper 217

A fantastic article about a great physical chemist Walther Nernst by Gerhard Ertl for those who are interested in history of chemistry and chemists. I mentioned that Nernst and Fritz Haber had a dispute over ammonia synthesis. Here you can read it again:

"Fritz Haber, who in actual fact owed this success to the controversy with Walther Nernst, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1918 for this,while Nernst in 1916 in aletter to BASF wrote:“unfortunately Ithen held the view that it is technically difficult to make”."