Is it not remarkable to know that development of explosives has shaped man’s history in general and man’s life in particular? Traditionally, Chinese invented gunpowder before the Christian Era. But, when Europeans started using it in 14th century, its use spreaded into rest of the world.
Conventional gunpowder is a mixture of potassium nitrate (saltpeter), charcoal, and sulphur. It was in use until near the end of 19th century.
In 1845, Schoenbein, a German chemist treated cotton fibres with a mixture of sulphuric and nitric acids. The product was white fibrous product called nitro-cellulose, or gun cotton which was much more explosive than gunpowder.
His contemporary Ascanio Sobrero, an Italian, developed an explosive even more powerful than gun cotton— it was nitroglycerin. He prepared it by allowing glycerin to fall in drops into a mixture of strong nitric and sulphuric acids, which he kept cool.
In 1865, Alfred Nobel, a Swedish chemist discovered dynamite by chance. He had been working with nitroglycerin, which posed many problems. However, he could develop a safe way to produce nitroglycerine. But it often exploded during transportation and was dangerous to handle. Once upon a time, he was removing some cans of nitroglycerin from a box of kieselguhr (a light earth of volcanic origin) in which he had packed them. He found that one of them had leaked and formed a solid mass which was less sensitive to shock—thus dynamite was discovered!
