Things I Won’t Work With: Peroxide Peroxides (2014)
blogs.sciencemag.org
blogs.sciencemag.org
https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd... (PDF may not render properly in Chrome)
Here are some fun podcasts to listen: http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/podcasts/
I think it needs to be read with a BSc chemistry class cheat-sheet of some sort, which I haven't found yet. Anyone knows any dense, crystal-clear chemistry 101 ressource on the web?
Edit: grammar.
It's also about assembling huge teams, and yet keeping all their data in secret.
It's also about extremely reliable electronics/software that must survive on the some of the last hospitable environments available, but must not ever get any maintenance.
It's about a huge set of incredibly hard problems. Every one fascinating.
Ah, the old sand bucket. Was out in the hall outside the undergraduate labs. Might have been there since benzene was linear. Top was decorated with cigarette butts, dried gum, bits of paper. Then one day down the hall the THF still is being cleaned out – long over due. Thick clumps of whatever ketyl becomes. Inside, a bright shiny prize of sodium metal that disagrees with the optimistic and impatient grad student’s use of straight ethanol as cleaning aid. Fire erupts. Extinguished by CO2. Humid day, icy glass, beads of water form and follow gravity down. Into and onto sodium metal. Fire erupts. Extinguished by CO2. Repeat several times until it dawns that CO2 will eventually run out. Send terrified lab mate down the hall to fetch savior: sand bucket! Weight of bucket: about 200 lbs. Skinny grad student risks hernia rushing it back to lab, arrives exhausted, collapses in victory like Pheidippides. Firefighting grad student drops damned CO2 tank, plunges bare hand into sand bucket. Screams in pain – sand has been accreted by age into protoconcrete, impermeable to human flesh, spatulae, metal rulers, etc. Fire meanwhile burns itself out. Sand bucket replaced for next sucker.
Second favorite goes to http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2006/05/30/thi..., if only for the phrase "I’d like to shake the hand of whoever determined that property, assuming he has one left."
from: http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2011/11/11/thi...
At seven hundred freaking degrees, fluorine starts to
dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its
gentle and forgiving nature.> At 116 K (melting point of Freon-12), tetraoxygen difluoride decomposes and, if there is contact with concentrated ozone, both explode.
No shit Sherlock. :)
Strangely enough, I cannot find any paper about Streng doing explosive reactions with O3F2.
> In general, we chemists shy away from compounds with lots of single bonds between the elements on the right-hand side of the periodic table. Those guys tend to have a lot of electron density on them, and bonding between them is a careful, arm’s-length affair, sort of like porcupines mating.
http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/san...
-maintenance of your DOT4 brakes? do not touch the DOT4
brake fuild, it's absorbed though your skin and it will
kill your kidneys when they try to filter it.
-Old house in america? check you don't have any pipe
soldered with lead, hot water will eventually make it
evaporate
-lead in electrical solder wire
-mercury, a powerful neuro-toxin
-again, old house, check to change the paint, yep, lead
in the pain again.
-close to an airport? beside noise, lead in the airplanes
fuel
-Teflon... again Dupont and 3M
-Aluminum on cookware... toxic
2.) Hot water certainly doesn't "evaporate" lead-- lead's boiling point is 1700C. Hot water can leach lead from solder joints, if your water isn't treated properly: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/basic-in...
3.) Yeah, lead solder isn't great to spend a lot of time with, which is why RoHS was introduced in 2003: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restriction_of_Hazardous_Subst...
4.) Where are you going to find bulk metallic mercury in any house built in the last three decades?
5.) Lead paint was also phased out years ago.
6.) Leaded avgas does still exist, and is bad. Don't buy property near airports that fly small planes.
7.) Teflon is about as chemically inert as a flororcarbon can possibly be. You might be thinking of Perfluorooctanoic acid, which is involved in Teflon production, and is pretty nasty: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid
8.) Aluminum cookware isn't toxic, are you nuts?
http://www.nytimes.com/health/guides/nutrition/cooking-utens...
> Aluminum cookware is very popular. Nonstick, scratch-resistant anodized aluminum cookware is a good choice. The hard surface is easy to clean. It is sealed so aluminum cannot get into food.
> There have been concerns in the past that aluminum cookware increases the risk for Alzheimer's disease. The Alzheimer's Association reports that using aluminum cookware is not a major risk for the disease.
> Uncoated aluminum cookware is a greater risk. This type of cookware can easily melt. It can cause burns if it gets too hot. Still, research has shown that the amount of aluminum this cookware leaches into food from is very small.
Not sure what "sealed" aluminum is nor what it would be coated with to prevent any kind of leaking. This is all new to me.
Aluminum oxide is hard stuff: 9 on the Mohs hardness scale (talc = 1, diamond = 10). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohs_scale_of_mineral_hardness
I remember from a freshman chem lab that trying to dissolve aluminum into acid doesn't work because acid promotes oxide growth, so we dissolved it in NaOH, which was supposed to attack the oxide, then acidified the solution. Are the aluminum oxide minerals similarly susceptible, or do they also resist alkali?
> Hot water can leech lead from solder joints,
It's leach
Skimmed an article on the latter…
“DMSO has the unusual property that many individuals perceive a garlic-like taste in the mouth after contact with the skin.” — Darn. Wasn’t quite sure things like these are possible.
“DMSO can cause contaminants, toxins, and medicines to be absorbed through the skin.”
“In Australia it is listed as a schedule 4 poison, and a company has been prosecuted for adding it to products as a preservative.” — What about other countries?! China?
Overall, the kind of information that I wish I didn’t have to know. Useful, but now I’m left to wonder what else am I blissfully unaware of.
By the way, what about fuel used in modern fighter jets (military industry is known for environmental tradeoffs), anyone knows if byproducts are harmful to those on the ground? Trying to figure out whether noise is the only issue with living by an military base with low-flying fighters every day.
And yet, as recent news reminded us, there's still plenty of it in Baltimore:
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/baltimores-toxic-legacy-...
As far as disposal is concerned, one car battery has more lead in it than every electronic device you'll ever own, but for some reason nobody cares about those.
(Yes, most car batteries get recycled... and that would have been straightforward and sensible to mandate for the rest of the world's lead-bearing electronics, compared to the nightmare that is/was RoHS.)
As far as disposal goes, there is some concern about lead in CRTs and solder leaching its way down into the water table and back up to our taps, but no one has ever demonstrated exactly how that happens to my satisfaction. I'll concede the point that it's best not to throw it away.
(You might also find it in wankel or rotary compression/combustion engines, though those are rare.)
Gas turbines, which you'll find on major airliners and many propellor craft (turboprops) burn what's effectively kerosene.
The lead is added to petrol to avoid knocking, a problem where you're compressing fuel in a cylinder (or again, compression-rotary engine). It's not used in most commercial aviation.
Yes, if there are small craft flying out of your commercial airport, you'll have some lead exposure. But it's your small and personal craft that are the bigger concern.
(As with several other cautions here, the advice you're giving is incomplete, misleading, or in several cases, simply wrong. Lead in paint and plumbing, yes. Mercury, yes. Teflon? Maybe. Aluminium? No.)
A much bigger risk of lead exposure is your local rifle range, esp. down range (i.e. the backboards / target area's)
Anecdotal warning TBH, but I meet a guy running an air rifle club and who also ran several other clubs up-to large bore shooting, and had been diagnosed with lead poisoning. He was also a re-loader, but blamed down range exposure.
I would guess instantly fatal levels of exposure, if you hang around at the target area during a shoot...
But is true that the CDC lists shooting firearms (target shooting) as the #1 non-occupational source of elevated blood lead levels. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6025a2.htm#tab
(It is certainly preventable with proper procedure -- https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/2009-136/pdfs/2009-136.pdf -- but I guess some operators are not aware of the risks, unfortunately.)
Lead in solder doesn't even make the CDC's table.
Pretty sure DOT4 brake fluid isn't that toxic.
For example, from the MSDS for DOT-4 brake fluid:
Skin Contact: May cause irritation. Brake fluid may be slowly absorbed through the skin. Excessive exposure for extended periods of time involving large areas of skin would be necessary for absorption of harmful amounts.
http://whfoods.org/genpage.php?tname=dailytip&dbid=92
Seems like the gold standard of cookware it's cast iron.
So if we look at the list at https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/spl/ it says:
> It should be noted that this priority list is not a list of "most toxic" substances, but rather a prioritization of substances based on a combination of their frequency, toxicity, and potential for human exposure at NPL sites.
The list also contains other metals as copper or silver.
If you actually read their profile about aluminium it's mostly about inhalation of aluminium dust (who is surprised that inhaling metal dust destroys your lungs?), aluminium buildup in people with kidney diseases (also not too surprising that all kind of stuff builds up in your body if your kidneys don't work anymore), and chemical compounds that contain aluminium e.g. antacids and buffered aspirin.
The only really interesting thing in there is the link with alzheimer's disease.
> Another neurological effect that has been proposed to be associated with aluminum exposure is Alzheimer’s disease. Although a possible association was proposed over 40 years ago, this association is still highly controversial and there is little consensus regarding current evidence. A number of studies have found weak associations between living in areas with elevated aluminum levels in drinking water and an increased risk (or prevalence) of Alzheimer’s disease; other studies have not found significant associations. In contrast, no significant associations have been found between tea consumption or antacid use and the risk of Alzheimer’s disease; although the levels of aluminum in tea and antacids are very high compared to drinking water, aluminum from these sources is poorly absorbed. The available data do not suggest that aluminum is a causative agent of Alzheimer’s disease; however, it is possible that it may play a role in the disease development.
Oh and they also found neurotoxicity in animals if they were fed ridiculous amounts of aluminium.
E.g., when the experiment blows up in your hands (or near them).
(I also recalled my father demonstrating to me, at a young age, how a candle flame wouldn't penetrate screen-door mesh, presumably because the metal is conductive; and wondered if mail might perhaps give some fire protection similarly, by spreading the heat thin. That seems unlikely, though.)
The candle effect you mention, is the principle behind Sir Humphry Day's safety lamp, as used by miners, which used a wire gauze screen to prevent flames igniting other flammable gases in the mine atmosphere. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davy_lamp for more information.
I said, "Well, I think I'd like it a little faster than that."
> Because of its extreme oxidizing potential, T-Stoff was a very dangerous chemical to handle, so special rubberized suits were required when working with it, as it would react with most cloth, leather, or other combustible material and cause it to spontaneously combust.
At 57% methanol and 30% hydrazine hydrate (by weight), the reductant wasn't exactly innocuous either.
[0] even more so as the reductant and oxidizer were picked for their hypergolic combination, ground explosion is not unheard of for 163.
> Based on these results the use of the UV/Ozone/Peroxide, especially the modified UV/Peroxide system, proved an effective process for removing and containing VOC contamination in the groundwater. The system was designed to treat 30,000 m g/l and the average influent was 25,00 m g/l. Along with the high contaminant removal, the system design conditions were met. The modified UV/Peroxide process replaced the UV/Ozone/Peroxide system, because the initial system, containing ozone, required lots of maintenance on the ozone generator and the delivery system. Ozone leaks were discovered (causing downtime) and the residual ozone proved to be corrosive in the reaction chamber.
This supports the description that Lowe gave.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=UV%2FOZONE%2FPEROXIDE+TREATMENT&t=... seems to be a fruitful search term.
More toxics / contaminants remediation than sewage treatment. Might be interesting to see if it could break down, e.g., dioxins.
From the HTP Wikipedia page.
I grew up 3 houses from I-40. I'm surprised I'm alive.
Entertaining, as always.
so HOOOH is hydrogen perperoxide, literally a chain of three oxygen atoms with a hydrogen atom at either end. In my electrochem (Chem 2) class, the instructor used to sometimes write HOH for water.