Alfred Nobel The name of Alfred Nobel is now known primarily thanks to the prize he created. During his lifetime, his reputation was completely different: Nobel was called the "king of dynamite" and "mass murderer"

Return to Sweden and experiments with nitroglycerin. Establishment of the first plant

Alfred remembered nitroglycerin back in Russia. Some sources claim that Zinin advised him to pay attention to this direction. True, before that, Alfred and Emmanuel produced nitroglycerin in a family enterprise and tried to use this substance in the creation of mines, but without visible results.

Nobel realized that an explosive could be of great value - for example, in the mining industry or in the construction of tunnels. Deciding to start research in this industry, he faced two difficulties: a lack of funds and the fact that Russian law prohibited the production of explosives by private individuals.

The last difficulty was solved quite easily: Alfred went to Sweden to his father. During his experiments, Emmanuel created several inventions, but he could not create a new company due to lack of money. Arriving in Sweden, Alfred was forced to travel to Europe almost immediately to get his start-up capital.

Nobel turned to the major French financiers - the Pereira brothers. At one time they visited Russia and were interested in steam engines, and therefore they found common themes with Nobel. Alfred received a large loan of 100 thousand francs - now the Nobels could start experimenting with nitroglycerin in earnest.

Emmanuel moved with his family to a farm outside the city, where it was easier to experiment. The money received was used to purchase the necessary components. Together, a laboratory and a small factory were created.

There is information that Alfred did not stay in Sweden and returned to St. Petersburg. Father and son experimented with nitroglycerin in parallel. The main topic of their research was explosion control, for which it was necessary to develop a fuse. Emmanuel used a fuse for a firearm even before receiving funding, and the attempt ended in an uncontrolled explosion.

After receiving funding, experiments continued. Unlike his father, who knew chemistry fragmentarily, Alfred coped with the task. Its development looked like this: nitroglycerin was sealed in a metal test tube and placed in a steel cylinder filled with black powder, and a fuse cord was connected to it.

In 1862, Nobel tested his fuse near the canal at his brother Ludwig's factory, and it proved to be excellent. This is how the famous "Nobel fuse" appeared. In 1867, Nobel will create an improved version of the detonator with explosive mercury and uses it in dynamite.

Alfred hastened to report the success to his father in Sweden, but Emmanuel, who struggled for a long time on the same problem, accused his son of stealing the invention. Alfred answered him with a reasoned letter, in which he denied the accusations and once again explained the essence of his development.

It all ended in reconciliation, but Alfred was saddened by this case for a long time. After these events, Nobel returned to Sweden and began working with his father. There is a version that Alfred developed the detonator even before receiving a loan from the Pereira brothers, but given the difference in the generally accepted dates of these events, this is unlikely.

In 1863, Nobel created a mixing injector, which made it possible to begin the continuous industrial production of nitroglycerin.

Despite the precautions, the Nobels failed to protect themselves from the tragedy. On September 3, 1864, an explosion of 100 kg of nitroglycerin took place at the factory , and the dilapidated wooden building was destroyed. Alfred at that time was in a different place and was not injured. The experiments were carried out by twenty-year-old Emil Nobel, who came to his family on vacation, and three workers - none of them survived.

It was impossible to identify the bodies, Emmanuel and Alfred took advantage of this: they told the police officers who arrived that Emil was not in the building, and the workers simply violated safety procedures. The Nobels lied for fear that they would not be allowed to experiment. The accident had a fatal effect on Emmanuel, and two weeks later the inventor suffered a stroke, after which he would be bedridden for the rest of his life.

Alfred did not give up his goals, although his brother Robert advised him to start experimenting. The meeting with Tagliaferro Scheffner, as he called himself, a specialist in mines, added to the desire to work. Scheffner was in Sweden when news of the explosion spread and came to see the results.

Impressed by the explosive power of nitroglycerin, Scheffner offered Nobel to sell the development rights to the United States. Nobel demanded $ 200 thousand. Scheffner tried to bargain, offering about 10 thousand Mexican dollars, but Alfred refused. Then Scheffner turned to the US Ambassador to Sweden with a proposal to steal Nobel's work, but nothing came of it.

The adventurer went to the USA, where he declared himself the creator of nitroglycerin, opened a factory to use other people's developments and even tried to patent the technology before Alfred.

Nobel had to go through a lawsuit against Scheffner to defend his invention. Scheffner's attention played an important role: Nobel became convinced that his developments were interesting and could bring profit and benefit.

It took Alfred a year to recover from the explosion. During this time, he had to go through increased public mistrust: there were discussions that experiments with nitroglycerin should be banned.

Nobel did not intend to give up and, exactly one year after the explosion, organized a public trial of nitroglycerin. No one was hurt, and the Swedish government was forced to recognize the substance as effective for blasting operations.

Nobel received the first large orders, but there was a problem: no one wanted to have a nitroglycerin factory in their neighbors. He found a solution by setting up a floating laboratory on a barge in the middle of Lake Mälaren. The pitching and humidity made it difficult to work, and there was little room for maneuver in case of unforeseen circumstances.

The entrepreneur himself complained that he had nowhere to conduct tests. The laboratory existed for a month, after which Alfred began to look for another solution.

The acquaintance of Nobel's aunt with the financier Johan Wilhelm Smith came in handy. Smith, having met Alfred, immediately noticed that he did not have the exact formula for nitroglycerin, and in the patent it was described very vaguely.

The detonator developed by Nobel was worthy of attention, but Smith understood that Alfred still had a lot of work and its result was not guaranteed. Nobel's main argument was that the State Committee on Railways recognized the effectiveness of using nitroglycerin for blasting operations. The financier agreed to cooperate and attracted several more partners. Thus was created the world's first company to manufacture nitroglycerin Nitroglycerin AB.

In addition to the fact that Smith invested money in the company, he helped Nobel get the territory for the plant. It was a remote location near Vinterviken Bay. Nobel himself supervised the construction, and then combined various positions, ranging from director to sales agent. His main assistant was childhood friend Alaric Leadbeck.

With the attraction of capital and the construction of the plant, opponents of the production of nitroglycerin became more active. Fearing that the plant would be shut down in a few months, Alfred was forced to actively promote the product and conduct public demonstrations of its effectiveness. Crown Prince Oscar was invited to one of these demonstrations, where a rock was blown up near Stockholm . Nitroglycerin has shown itself to be excellent.

The press was positive about these trials, but the attacks did not stop. There were rumors that the country would pass a law banning the production of nitroglycerin. Nobel realized that he needed to enter the international market, but he feared that in other countries nitroglycerin would be patented before him.

Subsequent actions of the inventor caused an ambiguous reaction even among his admirers. Alfred began a titanic campaign to obtain patents for the production and use of nitroglycerin. The real inventor of the substance, Sobrero, was out of work because of this.

Nobel came to another country and enlisted the support of several large financiers or entrepreneurs. Then they created a local company in which Nobel got 20-30%. By the end of his life, the empire of the inventor included about 100 factories.