Nitroglycerin Hazards Better living through chemistry Commentary

Ascanio Sobrero chemistry

Nitroglycerin

• After discovering nitroglycerin
• Ascanio Sobrero pleaded
• that it never be used as an explosive.
• That didn’t stop Paul Vieille
• who invented the smokeless gunpowder Poudre B.
• That didn’t stop Alfred Nobel
• who developed Ballistite and dynamite.
• That didn’t stop Frederick Abel, James Dewar, and W. Kellner
• who developed cordite.
• Eventually, William Murrell discovered
• that a little nitroglycerin under the tongue
• alleviates angina pectoris, and saves lives.

Hazards

• Pure nitroglycerin is sensitive to shock
• and detonates with a pressure wave
• that moves at three times the speed of sound.
• It is dangerous to move, dangerous to handle,
• and when left alone degrades to be even more unstable.
• Experimenting with nitroglycerin in his father’s factory,
• Alfred’s brother Emil Oskar Nobel
• blew himself and coworkers to smithereens.
• Shipping nitroglycerin to blast a train tunnel
• through the Sierra Nevada Mountains,
• Wells Fargo unloaded a crate in San Francisco
• and blew up fifteen people.
• The best precaution is to avoid making it,
• avoid experimenting with it, avoid shipping it,
• and avoid using it, except when prescribed by a doctor.

Better living through chemistry

• Everything we eat is made of chemicals.
• Our clothes are made of chemicals.
• Our cars are made of chemicals.
• Our homes are made of chemicals.
• The earth is made of raw chemicals
• but most are cooked before consumption.