Nobel, Emmanuel

Emmanuel Nobel (1801—1872), father of Alfred Nobel, installed sea mines of his in- vention in Baltic Sea to protect Russian fortress Cronstadt and City of StPetersbourg against British Fleet during the expected Crimean War (See Vol 5 of Encycl, p D1585-L)... 

Everything written to this point deals with NG at the time between its invention in 1846 by Sobrero and development of its preparation on an industrial scale by Alfred Nobel and his father Emmanuel during the years 1862-1863- More detailed description of this period may be found in Ref 15,... 

Swedish inventors Emmanuel Nobel and his son Alfred took an interest in this powerful liquid explosive and produced it commercially in 1862. However, its transportation and its handling were very hazardous, and eventually Alfred Nobel discovered that NG absorbed into a granular type of material (kieselguhr) was still explosive, but was much safer to handle and use than the straight liquid. This new invention, called dynamite, was difficult to ignite by the usual methods used for pure NG. Therefore, also in 1867, Alfred Nobel devised the blasting cap using mercury fulminate. With this development dynamite became the foundation of the commercial explosives industry. 

Meanwhile, Alfred Nobel with the assistance of his father, Emmanuel (1801-1872), was engaged in attempts to utilize NG in explosives and to improve its method of prepn, naming their product Pyroglycerin or Glonilol. It became later known as Nobel Sprengdl. It must be noted that Alfred s father, Emmanuel, was able to instruct his son in the use of expls, because he, himself, worked in this field in... 

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