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Every October the world waits for the Nobel Prize announcements. Fewer people know that the man behind the prizes was a chemist and industrialist who made his fortune from explosives. This post covers what Alfred Nobel invented, the chemistry that made nitroglycerine so powerful, and how his will created the prizes. It ends with a stoichiometry problem you can try.
Who was Alfred Nobel?
The Nobel Prize site's account of Alfred Nobel's life and work gives the facts. He was born in Stockholm on 21 October 1833. His father, Immanuel, was an engineer and inventor who later ran a workshop in St Petersburg, and the family moved there in 1842. Alfred and his brothers were taught by private tutors; by 17 he could speak and write in Swedish, Russian, French, English and German. His father sent him abroad to become a chemical engineer, and in Paris, in the laboratory of Professor T. J. Pelouze, he met the Italian chemist Ascanio Sobrero, who had invented nitroglycerine three years earlier.
Why was nitroglycerine so dangerous?
Nitroglycerine (C₃H₅N₃O₉, PubChem entry) is a liquid that carries its own oxygen. A fuel such as coal needs oxygen from the air and burns from the surface inward. Nitroglycerine has carbon and hydrogen (the fuel) and nitrate groups (the oxygen supply) in the same molecule, so it can decompose almost all at once, turning a small volume of liquid into a huge volume of hot gas. That is also why a knock or a jolt could set it off.
The Nobel site records the human cost. After the family returned to Sweden in 1863, Alfred's experiments with nitroglycerine caused accidents that killed several people, including his younger brother Emil. The government banned the experiments within Stockholm, and Nobel moved them to a barge on Lake Mälaren.
How did dynamite make it safer?
According to the Nobel site, Nobel found that mixing nitroglycerine with kieselguhr (which the site describes as a fine sand) turned the liquid into a paste that could be shaped into rods and pushed into drill holes. He made the invention in 1866, patented it the next year and named it dynamite. He also invented a detonator, or blasting cap, set off by lighting a fuse. Together with new drilling machines, these inventions cut the cost of tunnelling, rock blasting and bridge building.
The business grew quickly. The same account says he built factories in 90 places in more than 20 countries, experimented with synthetic rubber, leather and artificial silk, and held 355 patents by the time of his death.
A worked example: how much gas does nitroglycerine make?
One balanced equation for the decomposition of nitroglycerine is:
4 C₃H₅N₃O₉ → 12 CO₂ + 10 H₂O + 6 N₂ + O₂
Check the balance. Carbon: 4 × 3 = 12 on the left, 12 on the right. Hydrogen: 4 × 5 = 20; right side 10 × 2 = 20. Nitrogen: 4 × 3 = 12; right side 6 × 2 = 12. Oxygen: 4 × 9 = 36; right side 12 × 2 + 10 + 2 = 36. Balanced.
Problem. How many moles of gas form from 1 kg of nitroglycerine, and what volume would the CO₂, N₂ and O₂ occupy at 0 °C and 1 atm? Use the PubChem molar mass of 227.09 g/mol and 22.414 L/mol.
Moles of nitroglycerine: 1000 ÷ 227.09 ≈ 4.404 mol.
Every 4 mol gives 12 + 10 + 6 + 1 = 29 mol of gas while hot, so total gas ≈ 4.404 × 29 ÷ 4 ≈ 31.9 mol.
Once cooled, water condenses. The remaining gases are 12 + 6 + 1 = 19 mol per 4 mol, so ≈ 4.404 × 19 ÷ 4 ≈ 20.9 mol.
Volume at 0 °C and 1 atm: 20.9 × 22.414 ≈ 469 L.
Close to half a cubic metre of gas from one kilogram of liquid, even after cooling. At the temperature of the explosion, the volume is far larger.
Common mistakes:
Counting water as a gas at 0 °C. Decide the state of each product at the stated conditions.
Using the coefficients as masses. Coefficients are mole ratios; convert grams to moles first.
Forgetting the single O₂ when checking oxygen, which leaves the equation looking unbalanced.
How did his will create the prizes?
Nobel died in San Remo, Italy, on 10 December 1896. His will, dated 27 November 1895, left gifts to relatives and staff and then directed that "All of my remaining realisable assets" form a fund, "the interest on which is to be distributed annually as prizes to those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind". The interest was to be split into five parts: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, and peace. He also wrote that no consideration should be given to nationality.
The Nobel site notes that relatives opposed the will and authorities questioned it, and it took four years to settle. The first prizes were awarded in 1901 in Stockholm, with the Peace Prize in Kristiania (now Oslo). The economics prize was not in the will: Sveriges Riksbank established it in 1968 in his memory.
What can a student take from Nobel?
Turn a hazard into a controlled process. Nobel did not discover nitroglycerine; he made it usable. Much of science and engineering is that second step.
Use the chemistry you know. The reasons nitroglycerine is dangerous, an internal oxidiser and fast gas release, are things you can work out from the formula.
Think about what your work is for. Nobel chose to tie his fortune to discoveries that benefit humankind.
For more practice converting grams to moles and gas volumes, read our posts on common mole concept errors and ideal gas problems. When a stoichiometry problem goes wrong and you cannot see where, the Fermi Problem Library has a step-by-step solver that explains the reasoning.
Try this now: redo the worked example for 500 g of nitroglycerine and check that every answer halves.
