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"

Making plastic dynamite. "Nobel Brothers Oil Production Partnership"

Nobel settled in Paris: he loved France, which reminded him of his youth. Frustrated by the role of a sales agent, he began to do what he knew best - to invent. The main focus of research was the search for a replacement for diatomite, which significantly reduced the power of nitroglycerin. In addition, with high humidity, there was a danger of dynamite sweating.

As a result of a series of more than 200 experiments, Nobel obtained plastic dynamite. There is a semi-mythical story that during the experiments, Alfred severely injured either his finger or his hand (according to the most extraordinary version, a splinter from an exploded flask got into his hand).

Nobel treated the wound with collodion, a substance based on alcohol and colloxylin. At night, because of the pain, he could not sleep, but there was time to think. Alfred drew attention to colloxylin and decided to use it in development.

A more realistic version is believed that Nobel tried a combination of various substances and eventually added colloxylin to nitroglycerin. The resulting product had a jelly-like shape and became known as ductile dynamite.

The product passed over 200 experimental tests and was officially patented in 1876. It went on sale under various names, starting with Dynamite Extra and ending with Explosive Gelatin.

This time, the public was scattered in praise of the invention. Even the scientist Nils Abel, who has long interfered with Nobel's work in Britain, called plastic dynamite perfect in every sense. The profit from the sale of dynamite and the complex of factories in different countries of the world made Nobel one of the richest people of his time.

In 1879, Robert, Ludwig and Alfred Nobeli created the Nobel Brothers Oil Production Partnership , which produced and refined oil in Baku. Subsequently, the company will become a strong competitor to Standard Oil in the Russian Empire. The initiator of the creation of the company was Robert Nobel, who bought the first oil refinery in 1873.

The money for the work, apparently, was allocated by Ludwig. Together, the brothers modernized the factory infrastructure and acquired the best equipment. In 1877, their joint venture produced 2,500 tons of petroleum products, while about 200 competing factories together achieved an indicator of 75 thousand tons. This provoked a massive re-equipment of oil refineries in the region.

To counter the competition, the Nobels turned to Alfred. He was not too interested in oil, and he did not like family businesses, considering them the cause of strife, but he financially supported the brothers' venture. This is how a partnership with an authorized capital of 3 million rubles appeared. Ludwig sold a significant part of the property in order to receive most of the shares. Alfred retained a third of the firm.

Robert got the least shares - only 100 thousand rubles. He left the company and moved to Sweden. The Nobels hid the family quarrel and claimed that Robert left the company for health reasons.

Ludwig was engaged in the further development of the oil refining direction, and Alfred never even visited Baku in his life. However, he controlled the reports and in which case he was ready to intervene.

Ludwig Nobel earned good money, but most of it immediately invested in development. The approach led to financial problems, to which Ludwig and the other directors issued bonds, although this move could lead to the loss of the company.

Upon learning of this, Alfred hastened to intervene: first he wrote an angry letter to his brother, and then he himself went to Russia. In St. Petersburg, he checked the company's accounts, everything was in order, but the work of the directors of Nobel was still dissatisfied, and they found out about it. Alfred did not limit himself to checking and collected 4 million francs for the company, and also insisted on reducing dividends.

Using his reputation, Alfred Nobel received a large loan for the partnership from the National Bank of Russia, leaving his stake as collateral. The operations he carried out helped stabilize the company and played an important role in its success, although Ludwig was still the protagonist.

In the 1880s, Alfred became interested in developing smokeless powder. It could become a revolution in weapons: gunpowder smoke revealed the location of the enemy's guns in battle. Nobel bought a house in Sevran and set up a laboratory there. The place for the residence was chosen for the remoteness from Paris, in addition, the Boucher gunpowder factory was located here.

This time, Nobel did not succeed in achieving success quickly. It was only in 1887 that Nobel's smokeless powder, better known as ballistite, appeared. The development consisted of nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose, as well as 10% camphor. The derivation of this formula turned out to be a long and laborious process, but the tests were carried out at the shooting range of the French fleet, not far from the Nobel estate.

In the Nobel empire, there was a huge number of companies and factories independent from each other, which competed with each other, although they had one owner. In 1886-1887, Nobel and his partners divided the business into two large trusts - the Anglo-German and Latin.

The Anglo-German Trust included about 47 factories, and the Latin - 28, both of them owned enterprises almost all over the world. Although Nobel usually controlled large stakes in his companies, there is information that in the Latin trust he had about 2% of shares, and in the Anglo-German - 6%. It is unclear whether the sources exaggerated Nobel's initial stake or whether he was simply selling shares to concentrate on research.