![]() ![]() The solution he devised was a small wooden detonator with a black powder charge that was placed in a metal container full of nitroglycerin. "Nitroglycerin was a much more powerful explosive, but it was so unstable that it could not be handled with any degree of safety.” Nobel built a small nitroglycerin factory to supply his experiments and set to work. “At the time, the only dependable explosive for use in mines was black powder, a form of gunpowder,” the encyclopedia writes. ![]() In the early 1860s, having completed his education, he began experimenting with explosives. He had a long interest in the use of explosives, the encyclopedia writes, influenced by the family business selling explosive mines and other equipment. A few years later, though, Nobel thought nitroglycerin’s explosive tendencies could be tamed.Īccording to Encyclopedia Britannica, Nobel studied at Pelouze’s lab during a brief stint in Paris while he was studying chemistry. The oil this produced was incredibly explosive, writes Nobel biographer Kenne Fant, and Sobrero considered it too destructive and volatile to have any practical uses. It was during his time with Peleuze, in the mid-1840s, that he came up with a substance he initially called “pyroglycerine,” made by adding glycerol to a mix of nitric and sulfuric acids. Pelouze in Paris, according to the Nobel Prize website. Sobrero, like Nobel, was a chemist who studied with professor J.T. He just didn’t see any use for it-even though it became, in the hands of Alfred Nobel-yes, that Nobel-the active ingredient in dynamite. Ascanio Sobrero, born on this day in 1812, invented nitroglycerin.
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