But without a doubt, Nobel's greatest contribution was the invention of dynamite, which safely harnessed the energy of nitroglycerine. Alfred solved this problem with his invention of the mercury fulminate blasting cap. How to detonate it was an even bigger concern. Making nitroglycerine wasn't the only problem. One would think, though, that sitting in front of a bubbling kettle frothing with brown fumes of nitrogen oxides, containing the most powerful explosive known to mankind, would have been enough of a motivator to staying awake. So dangerous that in some cases the workers who monitored the reaction were made to sit on one-legged stools so that they would immediately wake up should they dose off. The nitration of glycerine was a dangerous business. Almost immediately tragedy struck when an explosion killed Emil, the youngest son. The family moved back to Sweden and set up a factory to produce nitroglycerine. ![]() Petersburg, which had been very profitable during the Crimean War, now faced bankruptcy. Immanuel Nobel did not need much convincing because his factory in St. The yellow liquid was also sensitive to shock, and it seemed to Nobel that if nitroglycerine were to be used as an explosive, a reliable detonation system would have to be found.Īlfred suggested to his father that they focus their attention on making nitroglycerine on a large scale. But as the temperature reached 220oC nitroglycerine exploded, although not always in a predictable fashion. The nitric acid converted glycerine into Sobrero's "pyroglycerine," which in chemical lingo was better described as "nitroglycerine." When heated, it just burned. Sobrero realized that glycerol and cellulose shared some chemical features and he wondered what would happen if he reacted it with the mix of acids that Schonbein had used. He realized that cellulose, the basic component of cotton, had somehow reacted with the acids to create an explosive material. When Schonbein tried to dry the apron by hanging it near a stove, it burst into flame and disappeared in a flash. He quickly picked up his wife's cotton apron and wiped up the mess. Schonbein, as the story goes, was experimenting in his kitchen with a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids which he accidentally spilled. He had gotten the idea from a story about a chance discovery made in 1838 by Friedrich Schonbein, a professor of chemistry at the University of Basel in Switzerland. Sobrero had made it by reacting a mixture of nitric and sulfuric acids with glycerine, a substance readily available by treating fats with sodium hydroxide. ![]() ![]() "Pyroglycerine," Nobel learned, was an oily liquid that exploded with great vigour when detonated. It was here that he met Ascanio Sobrero, an Italian chemist, who told him about a fascinating substance he had discovered. So he sent sixteen-year-old Alfred to apprentice in the laboratory of the noted French chemist Theophile Pelouze. Young Alfred had ambitions of becoming a writer but his father thought that a scientific career would be more practical. Petersburg in Russia where his inventor father had set up a small business developing sea mines for the Russian government. Nobel was born in Sweden but spent his early years in St. Indeed, he had spoken of producing a substance of "such frightful efficacy for wholesale destruction that it would make wars impossible." Unfortunately, he was wrong. Yes, he had invented dynamite and gelignite, the most powerful explosives known at the time, but he had always envisaged that they would be used to the benefit of mankind. ![]() Alfred was deeply disturbed by this chance preview of how the world would remember him. It was actually Alfred's older brother Ludvig who had died while vacationing in Cannes but a reporter had gotten the brothers mixed up. To make matters worse, not only had the newspaper killed him off prematurely, it had described him as a man who "became rich by finding a way to kill more people faster than ever before." The French press service that provided the story had made a mistake. Yet, there was his obituary, prominently featured in the morning newspaper. Alfred Nobel wasn't in the best of health but he knew he wasn't dead.
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