While working with Fritz Haber in Karlsruhe, he become interested in reactions at high pressures. In 1912 he devised an industrial process for making light hydrocarbons by the high-pressure hydrogenation of coal or heavy oil. The work earned him a share of the 1931 Nobel Prize for chemistry with Carl Bosch (1874–1940). The Bergius process proved important for supplying petrol for the German war effort in World War II.