Nobel's mercury-fulminate detonator
Detonador de fulminato de mercurio de Nobel
- Date
- 1863-1864 · confidence high
- Place
- Heleneborg, Stockholm, Sweden
- Credited to
- Alfred Nobel (with Immanuel Nobel)
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
A mercury-fulminate cap whose blast sets off nitroglycerine, patented by Alfred Nobel in 1863-1864. It made nitroglycerine usable with relative safety and was the step before dynamite.
On 3 September 1864 an explosion at the Heleneborg laboratory killed five people, among them Alfred's younger brother Emil. Fulminate caps existed before Nobel for firearms (Forsyth, 1807), but not as initiators for high explosives.
What it led to
- dynamite (1867) and industrial explosives
- blasting in mines, tunnels and canals (St Gotthard, Panama)
- detonators for ammunition and military engineering