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==The Invention Of Dynamite==
Alfred was requested to return to Russia in 1852 in order help with the family business which was booming because of the munitions being delivered to the Russian Army. In [[Russia]] , Alfred worked with his father to develop a stable version of nitroglycerinenitroglycerin. However, with the end of the war , Immanuel Nobel's business was forced into bankruptcy leaving the two eldest sons, Robert and Ludvig, to salvage the company. Returning to Sweden in 1863, Alfred continued his development of nitroglycerinenitroglycerin. After several explosions, including one that killed hs his brother Emil, the authorities prohibited his research within the Stockholm city limits and he moved to a barge anchored on Lake Mälaren. After starting commercial production of nitroglycerine nitroglycerin in 1864 , Nobel experimented with different additives. He discoverd discovered that by mixing it with ''[[kieselguhr]]'' the volatile liquid became a realtively relatively stable paste which could be shaped into cylinders for insertion into drilled holes. He patented this material in 1867 under the name '''[[dynamite]]'''. In order to produce an explosion from the stable compound , he also invented the detonator or blasting cap, which could be triggered by the ignition of a fuse. The parallel invention of the diamond drilling crown meant that the costs of major civil engineerng engineering works were drastically reduced.
==Commercial Success==
The market for Nobel's products grew rapidly and Alfred proved to be a skilful skillful businessman as well as a scientist. By 1865 , his factory in Germany was exporting nitroglycerine nitroglycerin explosives throughout the world. Eventually he built 90 laboratories and factories in 20 different countries. While basing himself in [[Paris]], [[France]] he continued to travel widely and was described by [[Victor Hugo]] as "Europe's richest vagabond". Not content with developing explosives, Nobel registered 355 [[patent|patents]] including materials such as synthetic [[rubber]], [[leather]] , and [[silk]].
[[Baku]] in [[Azerbaijan]] had long been famous for its [[oil]] seeps and in 1872, the Tsarist regime in Russia started to auction off sections of the oilfield. With his two older brothers, Robert and Ludvig, Alfred began the process to turn Baku into one the first large-scale commercial oil-fields in Europe. After visiting Baku in search of walnut wood to make rifle stocks for the family's armaments factory in St. Petersburg, Alfred ended up buying tracts of oil-bearing land. Bringing in six [[Pennsylvania|Pennsylvanian]] drillers, Nobel transformed Russian oil-field technology. However, the remoteness of Baku meant that transporting wooden barrels full of crude oil to the western markets was a difficult task. But by 1880 Nobel had constructed the first oil pipeline in Europe to deliver the oil to Baku and with the profits from their enterprise they not only launched the world's first oil tanker, the ''Zoroaster'', but also built the first continuous-process [[refinery]] as well as a [[railway]] to transport the crude to St. Petersburg. At one time a single well form the ''Apspheron'' oil-field could produced 4.5 million litres, far surpassing any well in the United States. It was only the quantity of oil from Baku that prevented [[John D. Rockefeller]]'s [[Standard Oil]] from establishing the same monopoly position in Europe that it had in the United States.
