Julius Bernhard Friedrich Adolph Wilbrand (22 August 1839 – 22 June 1906Familienarchiv Familie Wilbrand O13, Nr. 139, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt.) was a German chemist who discovered trinitrotoluene, more commonly known as TNT.
He was born on 22 August 1839 in Giessen, Germany, to Albertine Knapp and Franz Joseph Julius Wilbrand, a forensic physician. His brother, Hermann Wilbrand, was an ophthalmologist.
In 1863, Wilbrand discovered TNT while experimenting with new solutions for yellow dye.Annalen der Chemie und Pharmacie, Bd. 128, 1863, S. 178-179.G. Carlton Smith: TNT. Trinitrotoluenes and Mono- and Dinitrotoluenes, Their Manufacture and Properties, New York 1918, S. 17-18. He obtained trinitrotoluene through the nitration of toluene. TNT was originally used as a yellow dye; its potential as an explosive was not recognized until 1891, when its explosive properties were discovered by another German chemist, Carl Häussermann.
Wilbrand died on 22 June 1906.
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