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Also known as blasting gelatin

Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and saltpetre (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate).

Wikidata facts

Country of origin
Sweden
Image
Gelingnite general view.pdf
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discoverer or inventor
Alfred Nobel
time of discovery or invention
1875-00-00
Sources (3)

via Wikidata · CC0

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Encyclopedic overview

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Gelignite (), also known as blasting gelatin or simply "jelly", is an explosive material consisting of collodion-cotton (a type of nitrocellulose or guncotton) dissolved in either nitroglycerine or nitroglycol and mixed with wood pulp and saltpetre (sodium nitrate or potassium nitrate).

It was invented in 1875 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, who also invented dynamite. It is more stable than dynamite, but can still suffer from "sweating" or leaching out nitroglycerine. Its composition makes it easily moldable and safe to handle without protection, as long as it is not near anything capable of detonating it.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “gelignite” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.