Nobel’s Explosive Company

Figure 15, Gelatin lead azide (GAM) sectioned crystal agglomerate showing concentration of molybdenum disulfide in inner part of lobes, 308x. (Photo courtesy of ICI, Nobel s Explosives Company Ltd., Stevenston, U.K.)...

Thanks are due also to Dr. J. M. Jenkins of the same establishment and to Mr. L. E. Medlock of the Nobel s Explosive Company, Stevenston, Scotland, for the provision of photographs included in Chapter I. Among others in various countries who have provided information which has been eagerly incorporated are Drs. G. Blomqvist and S. Lamnevik, Research Institute for National Defense, Stockholm, Sweden Messrs. P. Collvin and T. Hansson, Department of Industry, Eskilstuna. Sweden Dr. R. Siepmann, Ministry of Defense, Bonn, West Germany and Messrs. D Ast, Morisson, and Cazaux, Atelier de Construction, Tarbes, France. 

It is not altogether surprising to learn that in 1909 both Nathan and Rintoul, the leading explosives technologists of their time, left government service to become General Manager and Chief Chemist, respectively, of the Nobel s Explosives Company at Ardeer, Scotland. At Ardeer the manufacture of NG and NG were well established and there is every indication that the newcomers were most welcome and set a new course... 

Line-washing processes have been developed both at the government factory at Bishopton and at the Nobel s Explosive Company de-... 

Agriculture and Fisheries Department for Scotland, ICI Nobel s Explosives Company Ltd Disposal of Waste Materials Arising from the Production of Explosives. Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for Scotland, 1990. 

The ball-drop test (Figure 5) is the simplest and has been used for many years to determine the impact sensitivity of lead azide, particularly in industrial laboratories, such as those of the duPont de Nemours Company in the U.S.A. and the Nobel Explosives Company in Scotland. A /2-in.-diam steel ball weighing 8.35 g is dropped from heights varying by 1-in. increments onto azide powder spread in a 0.03-in layer on a hardened and polished steel block. After each explosion, the lead deposited on the block is cleaned off and the ball and block are replaced whenever their surfaces become noticeably affected. 

Hough s method of nitration in the presence of sulfur trioxide was checked in 1910 by Berl and Biitler. They made intercomparisons of various starch nitrates and showed the very great difference in viscosities between a starch nitrate and a cellulose nitrate. An interesting departure in the techniques for stabilizing starch nitrate was indicated by Nathan, Rintoul, and Baker of the Nobel Explosives Company in 1912 British patents were issued covering the use of urea derivatives as stabilizers. 

Before the war, the manufacture of TNT was restricted to two private companies, the Clayton Aniline Company and Nobel s, the latter having a capacity of just ten tons per week. In comparison with other areas of munitions supply (especially shells, whose manufacture was often organized by locally self-appointed committees) the supply of high explosives was in November 1914 put into the hands of a newly-appointed Committee on High Explosives, under the chairmanship of the lawyer. Lord (Hetcher) Moulton, FRS. 

There were some major exceptions to the rule that munitions were marginal to industrial research, as exemplified by DuPont and the Nobel-Dynamite Trust and its international cartel sequel of blasting and propellant explosives companies. But the profitable core of their business lay in civilian explosives, notably dynamite and blasting gelatine. DuPont s products profile in 1905 was as follows ... 

The first commercial secondary explosive was produced by Alfred Nobel in the mid-1800s. Nobel s family owned a construction company, and he realized that a secondary explosive would be helpful for building roads (by blowing up mountains that stood in the way). However, at the time, there were no strong explosives safe enough to handle. Nobel focused his efforts on finding a way to stabilize nitroglycerin ... 

At that time, Dynamit Nobel A.G., still in a healthy over-all financial condition, was permitted by the Treaty to make explosives for mining. The parent company could have carried Rottweil without staggering, or put it to work on fibers. But this latter enterprise would compete with Farben, and that may have forced the decision to sell. Was Farben s acquisition of Rottweil really the opening gun in the later Farben campaign which swept across Europe If it was, Gajewski would not freely admit it ... 

Gunpowder was the primary explosive used for almost one thousand years. In 1846, the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888) first prepared nitroglycerin, but it was twenty years before Alfred Nobel (1833-1896) developed its use commercially. Nobel was bom in Stockholm, Sweden, where his father, Immanuel Nobel (1801-1872), ran a heavy constmction company. When Alfred was four, his father s company went bankrupt and Immanuel left for St. Petersburg, Russia, to start over. Immanuel rebuilt a successful business in Russia, in part due to his ability to develop and sell mines to the Russian Navy for use in the Crimean War. Alfred and the rest of his family joined his father in Russia when he was nine, and Alfred received an excellent education with private tutors. He studied in the United States and Paris where he met Sobrero. Nobel studied... 

Dr. Rudolf Meyer was born on 4. 3. 1908 in Spandau (Berlin) and took his degree in Physical Chemistry. He began his initial studies in the area of energetic compounds in connection with his Doctor s degree in 1931 at Professor Boden-stein s Institute in Berlin with a paper on the enthalpy of formation and thermal decomposition of hydrazoic acid. After taking his Doctor s degree, he entered the Dynamit Nobel Company in 1934 as assistant to Dr. Ph. Naoum. He worked there from 1936-1945 on the development of pourable ammonium nitrate explosives and on hollow charges. 

Dynaschoc is the trade name of a non-electrical detonating system (see also -> Nonel) made by the DYNAMIT NOBEL GmbH Company. In this system the detonation pulse is propagated at about 2000 m/s via a thin plastics tube whose internal surface is dusted with about 16 mg of explosive per m. The tube is not destroyed by this detonation pulse. 

In their view, the VCM health hazards added to Troisdorf s long-standing conflict with the company. Complaints about Dynamit Nobel had been made regularly since the factory had extended its production facilities in 1966. For the immediate neighbourhood, the circumstances of production had proved to be scandalous. Noise and phenol pollution had been a constant problem, and the risk of explosions threatened adjacent houses. ... 

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