Childhood and family
Alfred Nobel (1832-1898) is one of Sweden’s most famous inventors. His father, Immanuel, was also an inventor. Immanuel Nobel established Sweden’s first rubber factory and invented the inflatable rubber mattress among other things, but business did not go well. His family, his wife Andriette and eight children (only four reached adulthood), did not have it easy. As a child, Alfred was weak and infirm and completed only two school terms. But he was inquisitive, curious and a diligent reader.
Nobel and Russia
When Immanuel Nobel’s company went bankrupt, he left Sweden and moved to Finland to seek his fortune. At the start of the 1840s he moved on to Russia. Tsar Nicholas I was interested in Immanuel Nobel’s new invention, a new kind of gunpowder-filled underwater mine. The Tsar was impressed when Immanuel Nobel demonstrated the mine in St. Petersburg, and after two years he had enough money to send for his family.
Alfred Nobel and his brothers were taught in Russian and Swedish by a private tutor in St. Petersburg. The young Alfred was quick to learn Russian and as an adult spoke five languages fluently. As a 17 year old he was sent on a school (study) trip abroad. In France, he was employed by famous chemist, professor Pelouze, where he first came into contact with nitroglycerine, an extremely explosive and volatile compound of sulphuric acid, nitric acid and glycerine, which can self-ignite at 180oC.The Crimean War (1853-1856) broke out shortly after Alfred returned home and Nobel & Sons began manufacturing torpedoes for the Russian military. During this time, Immanuel Nobel started experimenting with nitroglycerine, but he couldn’t find a way to control when the nitroglycerine would explode.
When Nicholas I died in 1855, the company lost its military contract with the Russian government and went bankrupt in 1859. Immanuel Nobel returned to Sweden, but brothers Robert, Ludvig and Alfred remained in St. Petersburg. With time, Ludvig and Robert Nobel became oil magnates and millionaires in Baku (now Azerbaijan), whereas Alfred Nobel began to experiment.
Nitroglycerine and Alfred Nobel’s first inventions
In Stockholm, Immanuel Nobel continued without success to make gunpowder stronger by adding nitroglycerine. His son, Alfred, chose another path. Nitroglycerine’s weakness was that it could not be detonated using a fuse. Alfred resolved this problem by inventing the blasting cap, a small sensitive primary explosive, containing a highly flammable substance that detonated the secondary explosive. Alfred’s blasting cap was a mercury fulminate-filled copper capsule that exploded via a fuse wire. Together with his younger brother, Emil, and his father, Immanuel, Alfred experimented with various compounds of gunpowder and nitroglycerine, while also continuing to experiment with pure nitroglycerine. In 1864, he applied for a patent on the blasting cap and the method of producing nitroglycerine. That year, he and his father started Nitroglycerin AB, a Swedish company.
Tragic events
On 3rd September 1864, a violent explosion destroyed the factory in Stockholm. Emil was experimenting with the production of nitroglycerine, and he and five others died in the explosion. This was a hard blow for Immanuel and Alfred, but Alfred composed himself and decided to continue his work with nitroglycerine. He was now determined to make nitroglycerine more stable.
Two major explosions in Vinterviken
In June 1868, there was yet another major explosion at Nobel’s nitroglycerine factory in Vinterviken, just south of Stockholm. The laboratory building was completely destroyed, not even the foundations remained, and fourteen people died. Witnesses said that one laboratory worker who had notably acted carelessly with nitroglycerine had been warned by colleagues and was about to lose his job. He was in charge of purifying the nitroglycerine that was poured into large clay containers. The containers were then dragged across the asphalt
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