3 ms·

This made me think about the excellent "things I won't work with" series by Derek Lowe. https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-work-with htt

• x1f604 3y ago
  From the book: (Warning: Spoilers ahead) > The next day I told Parry that I was flattered but would not make pentaborane. He was affable, showed no surprise, no disappointment, just produced a list of names, most of which had been crossed off; ours was close to the bottom. He crossed us off and drove off in his little auto leaving for Gittman's, or perhaps, another victim. Later I heard that he visited two more candidates who displayed equal lack of interest and the following Spring the Navy put up its own plant, which blew up with considerable loss of life. The story did not make the press.
  • keepamovin 3y ago
    Hahaha. Fuck. The history of pentaborane is littered with human tragedy. What an appropriate compound for this troubled age.
    • lazide 3y ago
      Definitely don’t read about the history of acetylene then. Same as it’s always been.
      • keepamovin 3y ago
        Hahah. Oh gosh. As an aside: Your username checks out. Azides are nothing to be sneezed at either, IIRC.
        • lazide 3y ago
          Hah, first time someone noted that connection! On the original topic of the thread, check out Chemical Forces video on boranes - [https://youtu.be/8hrYlhTYl5U?si=4SDJq4MxAEu714iY https://youtu.be/8hrYlhTYl5U?si=4SDJq4MxAEu714iY] I’m not a chemist, but used to read my copy of ‘chemistry of powders and explosives’ to get to sleep, and synthesized a few out of curiosity over the years. There are some real fun wiki holes in the topic too. The azides do tend to be a bit unstable as well, same as the fulminates. Most are still more stable than the organic peroxides, at least if they’re uncontaminated, Energetics chemists tend to be the Leroy Jenkins of scientists. Lead(ii) azide has mostly been replaced by lead styphnate or other compounds in commercial use, safer to synthesize [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_styphnate https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_styphnate]
          • fuzzfactor 3y ago
            In the analytical lab we had been using dinitrophenylhydrazine, in very low concentrations, in the determination of trace aldehydes. When the previous bottle was almost empty, I found out it could not be reordered from our established supplier. One chemist showed me how little there was left, he had been banging the bottle against the bench to get the last gram out. I was about in shock, apparently less so than the compound itself, and advised don't do that again because it's like a cross between TNT and rocket fuel. Then found out the DNPH was no longer available in dry form, packed under water now under a different part number and with a revised SDS.
  • fuzzfactor 3y ago
    When Gergel was writing this I was working for one of the similar companies, a research chemicals company fairly close to the bottom of that list also. We made lots of different unique chemicals ourselves but distributed many more. Quite a few from Columbia Organics, I remember their isopropyl bromide well.
• araes 3y ago
  Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane is pretty funny and very similar. "Hexanitro? Say what? I'd call for all the chemists who've ever worked with a hexanitro compound to raise their hands, but that might be assuming too much about the limb-to-chemist ratio." (classic chemist joke) "make a more stable form of it, by mixing it with TNT. Yes, this is an example of something that becomes less explosive as a one-to-one cocrystal with TNT.."
  • db48x 3y ago
    And then hexaaza, which is six more nitrogens…