Ascanio Sobrero
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Ascanio Sobrero (12 October 1812 – 26 May 1888) was an Italian chemist, born in Casale Monferrato. He studied under Théophile-Jules Pelouze at the University of Turin, who had worked with the explosive material guncotton.
Education and career
He studied medicine in Turin and Paris and then chemistry at the University of Gießen with Justus Liebig, and earned his doctorate in 1832. In 1845, he became a professor at the University of Turin.
During his research, he discovered, in 1847, nitroglycerine.<ref>Sobrero, Ascagne (1847) "Sur plusieur composés détonants produits avec l'acide nitrique et le sucre, la dextrine, la lactine, la mannite et la glycérine" (On several detonating compounds produced with nitric acid and sugar, dextrin, lactose, mannitol, and glycerine), Comptes rendus, 24 : 247–248.</ref><ref>Sobrero, Ascanio (1849) "Sopra alcuni nuovi composti fulminanti ottenuti col mezzo dell’azione dell’acido nitrico sulle sostante organiche vegetali" (On some new explosive products obtained by the action of nitric acid on some vegetable organic substances), Memorie della Reale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 2nd series, 10 : 195–201. On p. 197, Sobrero names nitroglycerine "pyroglycerine": "Quelle gocciole costituiscono il corpo nuovo di cui descriverò ora le proprietà, e che chiamerò Piroglicerina." (Those drops constitute the new substance whose properties I will now describe, and which I will call "pyroglycerine".) This paper is translated into English (in part) in: MacDonald, George William, Historical Papers on Modern Explosives (London, England: Whittaker & Co., 1912), Chapter XXII: Sobrero's discovery of nitroglycerin (1847), pp. 160–163.</ref> He initially called it "pyroglycerine", and warned vigorously against its use.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> In fact, he was so frightened by what he created that he kept it a secret for over a year.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Another of Pelouze's students was the young Alfred Nobel, who returned to the Nobel family's defunct armaments factory and began experimenting with the material around 1860; it did, indeed, prove to be very difficult to discover how to handle it safely. In the 1860s, Nobel received several patents around the world for mixtures, devices, and manufacturing methods based on the explosive power of nitroglycerine, eventually leading to the invention of dynamite, ballistite, and gelignite from which he made a fortune.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Although Nobel always acknowledged and honoured Sobrero as the man who had discovered nitroglycerine, Sobrero was dismayed by the uses to which the explosive had been put and claimed he was almost ashamed by his discovery.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
Works
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References
- Italian chemists
- 1812 births
- 1888 deaths
- University of Paris alumni
- University of Turin alumni
- University of Giessen alumni
- Academic staff of the University of Turin
- People from Casale Monferrato
- 19th-century Italian inventors
- Scientists from Turin
- 19th-century Italian chemists
- Scientists from the Kingdom of Sardinia