Sobrero

Nitroglycerin was discovered by Ascanio Sobrero, in 1846. Its danger made it a laboratoiy curiosity until Alfred Nobel improved it along with other inventions such as the blasting cap ing mercury fulminate. 

Historical. The action of nitric acid on mannitol was first examined by A. Sobrero who isolated the hexanitrate in 1847 (Ref 3). The prepn on a lab scale was repeated by other workers in the mid-19th century (Refs 2, 4,10 12). It was mfd on a small scale in the Royal Arsenal at Turin, Italy until 1853, when 400g expld with great damage (Ref 33, p 198) later work has been described in Refs 13 15... 

Sulfuric acid is not all bad. In fact, it has many useful functions. One of those is to make nitroglycerin. Nitroglycerin is needed to make explosives like dynamite, but it is also used as a medicine. This dual-purpose chemical compound was discovered by Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888) in 1847. 

In 1863, against Sobrero s wishes, Alfred Nobel (1833-1896), a Swedish chemist and fellow student of Pelouze, developed 0 the blasting cap, a triggering mechanism that could deliver a 0... 

Nobel Foundation. Ascanio sobrero, Nobelprize.org. Available online. URL http //nobelprize.org/alfred nobel/biographical/ articles/life-work/sobrero.html. Accessed on March 10, 2008. 

Even more rapid reaction can be produced if oxygen and fuel are provided in a single chemical molecule. The discovery of nitroglycerine by Sobrero led to the first product of this type to achieve commercial importance. Nitroglycerine contains enough oxygen to bum all its own... 

The first high explosive discovered was probably nitrocellulose, in the period 1833 to 1846, but its development was long delayed by difficulties in obtaining a stable product. The two major discoveries in this field were of nitroglycerine by Sobrero in 1847 and TNT by Wilbrand in 1863. Of these, the first to attain commercial importance was nitroglycerine. 

It was discovered by Sobrero in 1847, but was developed to a commercial scale by Nobel. It has for a long time been, and still is, the most important sensitiser for commercial explosives. 

Eckstein, R, Jackson, M.C.N., Millman, N. and Sobrero, A.J. (1969). Comparison of vaginal tolerance tests and spermicidal preparations in rabbits and monkeys. J. Reprod. Fertil. 20 ... 

Simultaneously, the discovery of nitroglycerine in 1845 by Sobrero in Italy, and Nobel s work with dynamite, led to the development of a new generation of true high explosives that were far superior to black powder for many blasting and explosives applications. The development of modern smokeless powder -using nitrocellulose and nitroglycerine - led to the demise of black powder as the main propellant for guns of all types and sizes. 

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... 

Italian chemist, A. Sobrero, obtd on treating glycerin with mixed nitric-sulfuric a very expl liquid which he called glycerine fub minante or pyroglycerine (Ref 44, p 241)... 

N0)H2C.CH(0N02).CH2(0N02). An oily expl liquid first prepd by Ascanio Sobrero in Univ of Torino, Italy. A detailed description of its prepn, props,.analysis and uses is given by Belgrano (Ref 31, pp 140ff)... 

History. The first LE of practical importance was NG. It was discovered by an Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero, in 1846. 

Historical. NG was first prepd by Ascanio Sobrero in 1846 in Italy by adding glycerol to MA (mixed acid, usually nitric-sulfuric) at 10°. 

Aschele C, Sobrero A, Faderan MA et al. Novel mechanism(s) of resistance to 5-fluorouracil in human colon cancer (HCT-8) sublines following exposure to two different clinically relevant dose schedules. Cancer Res 1992 52 1855-1864. 

Sobrero AF, Aschele C, Bertino JR. Fluorouracil in colorectal cancer a tale of two drugs implieations for biochemical modulation. JClin Oncol 1997 15 368-381. 

Nitroglycerine and dynamite succeeded black powder as the chief explosives. An Italian chemist, Ascanio Sobrero, invented NG in 1846 and the Swedish scientist Alfred Nobel invented dynamite in 1867,... 

The first important invention before the invention of NC NG was the prepn in 1833 of impure Nitrostarch(NS) by Braconnot. The next step was prepn in 1838 by Pelouze of nitrated paper and cotton, but it was not realized that these were actually impure, low nitrogen content, NC s. More important than the work of the above investigators were the prepn in 1846 of NC of high N content (known as Guncotton), independently by C.F. Schonbein (1799 1866) and F. Bottger (1806 1886) and in the same year of NG by an Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero (1812-1888). The method of prepn and some props of NG were published in France in Feb 1847 by Th-J. Pelouze (1807-1867)... 

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,... 

Nitroglycerine (C3H5N309) (2.6) was first prepared by the Italian, Ascanio Sobrero in 1846 by adding glycerol to a mixture of sulfuric and nitric acids. In 1863, a laboratory plant was set up to manufacture nitroglycerine by the Nobel family. In 1882, the Boutmy-Faucher process for the manufacture of nitroglycerine was developed in France and also adopted in England. 

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