Invention of Dynamite (1867): Alfred Nobel's Explosive Fortune

Dynamite, patented by the Swedish chemist and industrialist Alfred Nobel in 1867, was the first high explosive that could be handled and transported with reasonable safety. By absorbing dangerous liquid nitroglycerine into a porous earth, Nobel created a stable paste that could be packed into sticks and fired by a detonator. It transformed mining, quarrying and the building of railways, tunnels and canals, and the fortune it earned later funded the Nobel Prizes.

Background: the power and peril of nitroglycerine

For centuries the only practical explosive was black powder, the gunpowder invented in China. It was useful for blasting but relatively weak, and breaking hard rock with it was slow and costly.

In 1847 the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, working in Turin, made nitroglycerine by treating glycerine with nitric and sulphuric acids. It was far more powerful than gunpowder but terrifyingly unpredictable: an oily liquid that could explode from a knock, friction or heat. Sobrero himself warned against its use.

Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm on 21 October 1833. His father, Immanuel Nobel, was an engineer and inventor who ran a successful engineering works in St Petersburg making mines and machinery for the Russian state. Alfred studied chemistry privately, including a stay in Paris in the laboratory of Théophile-Jules Pelouze, where he learned of nitroglycerine.

Taming nitroglycerine

Back in Sweden in the early 1860s, Alfred and his father began trying to produce nitroglycerine for blasting. The central problem was how to set it off reliably. Nobel’s solution was the detonator: a small charge that exploded first and triggered the main charge. His first patent for igniting nitroglycerine came in 1863, and in 1865 he patented a blasting cap using mercury fulminate, the basis of later detonators.

Tragedy struck on 3 September 1864. An explosion at the family’s workshop at Heleneborg in Stockholm killed five people, including Alfred’s younger brother Emil. The authorities banned nitroglycerine manufacture within the city, and Nobel continued work on a barge on Lake Mälaren before founding a company and factory at Vinterviken.

Demand grew quickly, but so did accidents. In 1866 nitroglycerine shipments exploded in several places, including a Wells Fargo office in San Francisco and a steamship at Aspinwall (now Colón) in Panama, and Nobel’s own factory at Krümmel near Hamburg was damaged by an explosion. Several countries restricted or banned the liquid.

The invention of dynamite

Working at Krümmel in 1866, Nobel experimented with absorbing nitroglycerine into a porous solid. The best result came from kieselguhr, a light earth made of the fossilised shells of microscopic algae, which was found locally. Mixed with about a third of its weight in kieselguhr, nitroglycerine became a putty-like paste that was much less sensitive to shock.

Nobel named the product dynamite, from the Greek dynamis, meaning power, and also sold it as “Nobel’s Safety Powder”. He took out patents in Britain in May 1867 and in Sweden in September 1867, and in the United States in 1868. The paste was wrapped in paper cartridges, or sticks, and fired with his detonator.

Uses: mining, tunnels and railways

Dynamite spread rapidly across the world. Nobel built a network of factories and companies, including a large works at Ardeer in Scotland from the early 1870s. Production rose from a few tons in 1867 to thousands of tons a year within a decade.

Miners, quarrymen and engineers used it to break rock far faster and more cheaply than before. It helped drive the great Alpine railway tunnels, such as the Gotthard tunnel, completed in 1882, and was used in harbour works and canal digging, including the Panama Canal. Builders of North America’s railroads, such as the first transcontinental railroad, had relied on dangerous liquid nitroglycerine; dynamite soon replaced it in such work.

The change in working methods was dramatic. Rock that had once been broken slowly by hand drilling, fire-setting and black powder could now be shattered with a few well-placed charges. Combined with new compressed-air rock drills, dynamite made it possible to drive long tunnels and deep mine shafts at a speed that had been unimaginable a generation earlier.

Dynamite was not without danger. Old or badly stored sticks could “sweat” liquid nitroglycerine, becoming highly sensitive again, and accidents in mines, quarries and transport continued to kill workers. Governments responded with laws on the storage and carriage of explosives, such as Britain’s Explosives Act of 1875. Dynamite was also used in some bombings and attacks in the late nineteenth century, which gave it a sinister reputation alongside its industrial role.

Nobel kept improving his explosives. In 1875 he invented blasting gelatine, a more powerful and water-resistant mixture of nitroglycerine and nitrocellulose, and in 1887 he patented ballistite, one of the first smokeless powders, which was adopted for military use.

Key people

• Alfred Nobel (1833–1896): chemist, inventor and industrialist who held more than 350 patents.
• Ascanio Sobrero (1812–1888): Italian chemist who discovered nitroglycerine in 1847.
• Immanuel Nobel (1801–1872): Alfred’s father, engineer and early partner in nitroglycerine work.
• Emil Nobel (1843–1864): Alfred’s younger brother, killed in the Heleneborg explosion.
• Ludvig and Robert Nobel: Alfred’s elder brothers, who built a major oil business in Baku, in which Alfred invested.

From dynamite to the Nobel Prizes

Nobel became one of the richest men in Europe, living mainly in Paris and later in San Remo, Italy. He never married. A restless traveller and a private man, he ran a business empire of factories and companies in more than 20 countries while continuing to experiment in his own laboratories in Paris, San Remo and, in his last years, at Bofors in Sweden, which he bought in 1894. He was aware that his inventions could be used for destruction as well as construction and took a serious interest in peace, influenced in part by his friendship with the Austrian pacifist Bertha von Suttner.

A popular story says that when Ludvig died in 1888, a French newspaper mistakenly published Alfred’s obituary, calling him a merchant of death, and that this prompted him to rethink his legacy. The story is widely repeated, but historians have not firmly identified the newspaper, and it should be treated with caution.

In his will, signed in Paris on 27 November 1895, Nobel left the bulk of his estate, about 31 million Swedish kronor, to fund annual prizes for physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. He died at San Remo on 10 December 1896, and the first Nobel Prizes were awarded on 10 December 1901.

Timeline

• 1833, 21 October: Alfred Nobel is born in Stockholm.
• 1847: Ascanio Sobrero first makes nitroglycerine in Turin.
• 1863: Nobel patents a method of igniting nitroglycerine.
• 1864, 3 September: Heleneborg explosion kills Emil Nobel and four others.
• 1866: Deadly nitroglycerine accidents worldwide; Nobel develops dynamite at Krümmel.
• 1867: Dynamite patented in Britain (May) and Sweden (September).
• 1875: Nobel invents blasting gelatine.
• 1895, 27 November: Nobel signs his will establishing the prizes.
• 1896, 10 December: Nobel dies at San Remo.
• 1901, 10 December: The first Nobel Prizes are awarded.

Why it matters

Dynamite made powerful explosives practical for everyday engineering, speeding the building of the railways, tunnels, mines and canals of the industrial age. It also showed the double-edged nature of modern technology, and through Nobel’s will it gave the world its most famous prizes for science, literature and peace.