Situations to Avoid--The Safety Thread--The Spinoff

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Rougemillenial

Well-known member
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
87
Moderator's note: The exchange that follows was split from the original, very useful, thread in the Safety section. FrugalRefiner

Ah silver fulminate, Worked with it before, will never do it again. That stuff is god awful. Honestly this rule extends to all transition metal nitrate's. In general strong oxidizers in contact with organic material is a disaster just waiting to happen. I've worked with all sorts of pyrotechnics. Everything from HMTD to gun powder, thermite, flash powder, highly nitrated organics i.e. trinitroglycerin, acetone peroxide, gasoline vapor in a pure oxygen environment, 100 liters of hydroxyl gas pressurized into a 1 gallon bottle, and anhydrous hydrazine. I can essentially guarantee nitrate/solvent mixtures will detonate in a confined environment. Chemicals should be only stored with other compatible chemicals. I've made this mistake before and it caused a massive chlorine leak :oops: . It was a really good thing I can only sleep while breathing through my nose because otherwise the situation could have been way worse if not a fatal mistake :shock: . I work in the shed now since the incident. Which brings me to another point. Absolutely positively do not ever work in a space attached to the house :shock: ! That's the easiest way to end up getting hurt or killed. If something goes awry when you're asleep, you won't know until it's too late :!: Even though it was rather practical in my situation as the risk associated with potentially attracting unwanted attention is a way bigger risk than the safety benefit of setting up a space in the middle of the yard. It's a very complex risk/reward scenario as I live in a rather populated area in New Jersey where it's very risky to do this. Legally, anything goes when it comes to amateur chemistry thus why many of my posts mention more OTC processes in case anyone else is in the same predicament or can't/wants to avoid/ buying stuff online due to the potential of purchase/IP Address tracing thus why I use darknet servers frequently. Also another safety tip I can provide, if there's a reaction pathway that is safer, even if it's a bit more expensive, go with it. Better to spend a few more dollars at the hardware store than a few thousand to stitch up shrapnel induced lacerations and drain your lungs of acid burned tissue :shock: . Another thing I learned the hard way, never jump into a process without thoroughly understanding what you're doing and have half-decent apparatus. It seems like common sense but unfortunately with intelligence comes impulsiveness and a know it all complex which can make you think you know what your doing when in reality you don't have a clue. This of course lengthens a process that should've taken less than a year to taking 5 years and counting between school, family life, and other things :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: . At least I have recovered over a pound of gold and 4 kilograms of silver and am still alive despite everything possible going wrong in the worst way possible :lol:. For example, I tried to incinerate a bunch of circuit boards in a paint can with a pinhole in the top which previously worked amazingly well, though probably a little too well the resulting syngas burned so hot that it melted the Iron wood stove and made a deafening rocket sound as the gases were traveling well above 10 times the speed of sound and made a blindingly bright fire column likely above 6000F due to the aforementioned cast iron stove melting within the same timespan as thermite would :shock: This time though I tried using a charcoal fire with no extra forced oxygen support. This failed horrifically bad as I suspect ethylene oxide was being generated instead of syngas which is extraordinarily dangerous and instantly made a massive explosion when a spark came near of course the reason it didn't outright kill me was due to a rather lucky outcome of the paint can lid being shot up at supersonic speeds and the bottom turning into a bowl instead of the side walls rupturing/shattering which would've shot metal shards at the speed of a Barret 50 cal bullet in all directions. Also I never saw that paint can lid as it likely escaped the troposphere and got picked up by the jet stream, worst case scenario, it managed to reach escape velocity thus escaping the earth which considering the mixture of gases involved and the volume of the gas and the effect it would've most likely had on the paint can lid, that would not surprise me. the escape velocity is 10,000m/s and there are a few explosives that have a detonation velocity close to or beyond that. Not to mention the volume difference was absurd. With the storytime finished, what I'm trying to say is reaction conditions affect results. in the case of destructive pyrolysis, it's absolutely critical to have the temperature above the melting point of aluminum (700C) to split the epoxide rings wide open and push the reaction to a considerable degree. Another point I'd like to bring up is waste. If a process that has a higher overhead cost generates little waste you're far better off with that process as it's a huge pain to dispose of toxic waste especially if you're doing metric tons of material like me. I've probably generated over 400 gallons of aqueous waste alone which needed to be disposed of. Many would use lye or baking soda but unfortunately I'd need an equally absurd amount of base to neutralize the amount of waste I have. Instead I added a massive amount of aluminum to replace the other metals in solution which I ended up needing over 300lbs worth. I'll be the first to admit that I absolutely should have used iron first to cement the copper and other things first because the other salts reacted so violently that it caused the mixture to dangerously superheat likely above 400F because it ignited the hydrogen spontaneously causing over 200 gallons of water to boil in one second causing an insanely dangerous explosion. Think several sticks of dynamite in a bathtub :shock: . No seriously that's the kind of explosion force I'm talking about. It was so powerful it tore apart some fencing made of solid metal and shattered my remaining Pyrex :( . Yes my neighbors are absolute saints for being able to put up with me :lol: . Though looking back I absolutely shouldn't have used aluminum in the first place as that was bound to produce heat way faster than the water can react to the temperature change. When you work on a large scale, it's way more dangerous.
 
anachronism said:
Wall of text- please edit with paragraphs

I agree - reading a "wall of text" is difficult to read/follow - in fact when I see such I generally "skip" reading it at all

Please break your posts up so they are easier to read/follow :!: :!: :!:

Kurt
 
Rougemillenial said:
Also I never saw that paint can lid as it likely escaped the troposphere and got picked up by the jet stream, worst case scenario, it managed to reach escape velocity thus escaping the earth which considering the mixture of gases involved and the volume of the gas and the effect it would've most likely had on the paint can lid, that would not surprise me. the escape velocity is 10,000m/s .....
....generated over 400 gallons of aqueous waste alone which needed to be disposed of. Many would use lye or baking soda but unfortunately I'd need an equally absurd amount of base to neutralize the amount of waste I have. Instead I added a massive amount of aluminum to replace the other metals in solution which I ended up needing over 300lbs worth.
.... I absolutely should have used iron first to cement the copper and other things first because the other salts reacted so violently that it caused the mixture to dangerously superheat likely above 400F because it ignited the hydrogen spontaneously causing over 200 gallons of water to boil in one second causing an insanely dangerous explosion..

So... Let me get this straight.

You sent a paint can lid into orbit?...by incinerating circuit boards?
-wouldnt the surface area of the lid, as well as the resistance of air stop it (or at least significantly slow it) before getting several miles up??

And, why would you, a chemist, use aluminum in your waste treatment of -400 gallons- when you know it liberates hydrogen?

I believe I know whom aga spoke of now
 
Ah silver fulminate, Worked with it before, will never do it again. That stuff is god awful. Honestly this rule extends to all transition metal nitrate's. In general strong oxidizers in contact with organic material is a disaster just waiting to happen. I've worked with all sorts of pyrotechnics. Everything from HMTD to gun powder, thermite, flash powder, highly nitrated organics i.e. trinitroglycerin, acetone peroxide, gasoline vapor in a pure oxygen environment, 100 liters of hydroxyl gas pressurized into a 1 gallon bottle, and anhydrous hydrazine. I can essentially guarantee nitrate/solvent mixtures will detonate in a confined environment. Chemicals should be only stored with other compatible chemicals. I've made this mistake before and it caused a massive chlorine leak.
It was a really good thing I can only sleep while breathing through my nose because otherwise the situation could have been way worse if not a fatal mistake . I work in the shed now since the incident. Which brings me to another point. Absolutely positively do not ever work in a space attached to the house ! That's the easiest way to end up getting hurt or killed. If something goes awry when you're asleep, you won't know until it's too late Even though it was rather practical in my situation as the risk associated with potentially attracting unwanted attention is a way bigger risk than the safety benefit of setting up a space in the middle of the yard. It's a very complex risk/reward scenario as I live in a rather populated area in New Jersey where it's very risky to do this. Legally, anything goes when it comes to amateur chemistry thus why many of my posts mention more OTC processes in case anyone else is in the same predicament or can't/wants to avoid/ buying stuff online due to the potential of purchase/IP Address tracing thus why I use darknet servers frequently.
Another safety tip I can provide, if there's a reaction pathway that is safer, even if it's a bit more expensive, go with it. Better to spend a few more dollars at the hardware store than a few thousand to stitch up shrapnel induced lacerations and drain your lungs of acid burned tissue . Another thing I learned the hard way, never jump into a process without thoroughly understanding what you're doing and have half-decent apparatus. It seems like common sense but unfortunately with intelligence comes impulsiveness and a know it all complex which can make you think you know what your doing when in reality you don't have a clue. This of course lengthens a process that should've taken less than a year to taking 5 years and counting between school, family life, and other things.
At least I have recovered over a pound of gold and 4 kilograms of silver and am still alive despite everything possible going wrong in the worst way possible . For example, I tried to incinerate a bunch of circuit boards in a paint can with a pinhole in the top which previously worked amazingly well, though probably a little too well. the resulting syngas burned so hot that it melted the Iron wood stove and made a deafening rocket sound as the gases were traveling well above 10 times the speed of sound and made a blindingly bright fire column likely above 6000F due to the aforementioned cast iron stove melting within the same timespan as thermite would. This time though I tried using a charcoal fire with no extra forced oxygen support.
This failed horrifically bad as I suspect ethylene oxide was being generated instead of syngas which is extraordinarily dangerous and instantly made a massive explosion when a spark came near of course the reason it didn't outright kill me was due to a rather lucky outcome of the paint can lid being shot up at supersonic speeds and the bottom turning into a bowl instead of the side walls rupturing/shattering which would've shot metal shards at the speed of a Barret 50 cal bullet in all directions.
Also I never saw that paint can lid as it likely escaped the troposphere and got picked up by the jet stream. worst case scenario, it managed to reach escape velocity thus escaping the earth which considering the mixture of gases involved and the volume of the gas and the effect it would've most likely had on the paint can lid which turns the flat surface into a dome shape due to the small hole in the middle, that would not surprise me. the escape velocity is 10,000m/s and there are a few explosives that have a detonation velocity close to or beyond that. Not to mention the volume difference was absurd.
With the storytime finished, what I'm trying to say is reaction conditions affect results. in the case of destructive pyrolysis, it's absolutely critical to have the temperature above the melting point of aluminum (700C) to split the epoxide rings wide open and push the reaction to a considerable degree. Another point I'd like to bring up is waste. If a process that has a higher overhead cost generates little waste you're far better off with that process as it's a huge pain to dispose of toxic waste especially if you're doing metric tons of material like me. I've probably generated over 400 gallons of aqueous waste alone which needed to be disposed of.
Many would use lye or baking soda but unfortunately I'd need an equally absurd amount of base to neutralize the amount of waste I have. Instead I added a massive amount of aluminum to replace the other metals in solution which I ended up needing over 300lbs worth. I'll be the first to admit that I absolutely should have used iron first to cement the copper and other things first because the other salts reacted so violently that it caused the mixture to dangerously superheat likely above 400F because it ignited the hydrogen produced from residual acid spontaneously. This superheating caused over 200 gallons of water to boil in one second causing an insanely dangerous explosion. Think several sticks of dynamite in a bathtub :shock: .
No seriously that's the kind of explosion force I'm talking about. It was so powerful it tore apart some fencing made of solid metal and shattered my remaining Pyrex . Yes my neighbors are absolute saints for being able to put up with me . Though looking back I absolutely shouldn't have used aluminum in the first place as that was bound to produce heat way faster than the water can react to the temperature change. When you work on a large scale, it's way more dangerous.

Hope this fix is sufficient. Also yes the hydrogen ignited spontaneously but that was after the reaction went into runaway mode. The cause of the explosion was most likely due to superheating rather than the hydrogen. The reason it couldn't have been the hydrogen was due to how the explosion propagated from the bottom up which since the reactant area is towards the bottom would make sense thus where no oxygen was present.

Also the low earth orbit scenario was worst case, though due to the jet stream it would have to be moving at least a couple times faster than escape velocity to actually make it into orbit also because of the high latitude. Despite it being highly unlikely, it wouldn't surprise me if it at least made it to the jet stream. The volume of the container was around a gallon and the lid weighed around ten grams. As a result of the rapid expansion of gas. this would theoretically result in a 5000-10000 expansion rate. Also the bottom of the can formed a crinkled dome shape and so it could be reasonably assumed that it would have done the same to the lid. Also there was no wind that day and there were no nearby storm systems so although it could have hit a pocket of fast moving air, it's more likely the jet stream since I live in the northeastern US where the polar jet stream curves north towards Canada. though it would still would need to go over 6000 feet above sea level to reach it.

Though the superheating was in part due to the metal salts having a much lower reduction potential than aluminum thus there's way more energy left over to be converted into heat thus why I admitted I should've used iron as the reaction isn't anywhere near as violent and the formation of aluminum ions is highly exothermic. Mainly it's because I did it inside a large container, there was a large volume but the cross section that heat can be dispersed was puny in comparison so heat can't effectively be radiated. That's why I stated that a large scale reduction reaction is more dangerous.
My intention with the previous post was to tell my story about working in an unlicensed lab with inadequate space and terrible environment and the failures I've encountered along the way so hopefully you guys won't fall into the same trap.
About me being a chemist, I am an amateur scientist. I have yet to attend graduate school and I'm entirely self taught. the lab was just one giant experiment to see what I can do and to give me something enjoyable to do. Though I'm sure that the tiny space didn't help me one bit in terms of success or safety. Not to mention what I was attempting has never really been done before.
I was doing a one-pot extraction of precious metals on metric ton scale only using readily available equipment without any prior lab experience.
 
Rougemillenial said:
what I was attempting has never really been done before.
I was doing a one-pot extraction of precious metals

Believe it or not, that has been done before.

Many times.

You can find it by searching, "I threw all my scrap in a pot of acid, how do I get my gold back?"
 
UncleBenBen said:
Rougemillenial said:
what I was attempting has never really been done before.
I was doing a one-pot extraction of precious metals

Believe it or not, that has been done before.

Many times.

You can find it by searching, "I threw all my scrap in a pot of acid, how do I get my gold back?"
on a 5 metric ton scale? Only with readily available materials and equipment? No glassware?
 
orbit?! jet stream?!...dream on!... how old? 13?

Ok, I read this (lots of time, vacation here). Now, you finally convinced me, you don't know, what you are doing and what people like you do, is the main reason why chemicals are getting harder available, more regulated and monitored - for a good reason, I have to admit.

I am not impressed at all. It is not funny, nor can I see any value in this massive waste of 30 minutes of my lifetime.
 
Rougemillenial said:
Legally, anything goes when it comes to amateur chemistry thus why many of my posts mention more OTC processes in case anyone else is in the same predicament or can't/wants to avoid/ buying stuff online due to the potential of purchase/IP Address tracing thus why I use darknet servers frequently.
Or, you could stay safe and above board legally. I have never needed to use the Dark Web to obtain my chemicals, nor have I imagine any of the frequent contributors here.
 
upcyclist said:
Rougemillenial said:
Legally, anything goes when it comes to amateur chemistry thus why many of my posts mention more OTC processes in case anyone else is in the same predicament or can't/wants to avoid/ buying stuff online due to the potential of purchase/IP Address tracing thus why I use darknet servers frequently.
Or, you could stay safe and above board legally. I have never needed to use the Dark Web to obtain my chemicals, nor have I imagine any of the frequent contributors here.
I do not obtain chemicals from the dark web. I only use it for researching methods of recovery as well as accessing the web anonymously.
 
OK I'll bite.

What recovery methods are available on the dark web that aren't available if you know the right people to ask anyway?
 
anachronism said:
OK I'll bite.

What recovery methods are available on the dark web that aren't available if you know the right people to ask anyway?

For one, recovery of PM's from satellites in orbit about the earth, by using paint can lid to shoot them down.
 
snoman701 said:
anachronism said:
OK I'll bite.

What recovery methods are available on the dark web that aren't available if you know the right people to ask anyway?

For one, recovery of PM's from satellites in orbit about the earth, by using paint can lid to shoot them down.

Really? OK.
 
anachronism said:
snoman701 said:
anachronism said:
OK I'll bite.

What recovery methods are available on the dark web that aren't available if you know the right people to ask anyway?

For one, recovery of PM's from satellites in orbit about the earth, by using paint can lid to shoot them down.

Really? OK.

I thought British humor was dry and witty. I actually couldn't read the above mess, all I caught was "paint can lid into the trophosphere" and walked away from the computer.

The dark web has nothing the "light web" doesn't...you just get perceived anonymity. I guess we should be happy that the above poster has not taken on building a backyard nuclear reactor as his hobby.

In all seriousness...this is/was a great thread. I know moderators are watching, but I'd love to see it restored to greatness by removing everything from 2017.
 
FrugalRefiner said:
snoman701 said:
In all seriousness...this is/was a great thread. I know moderators are watching, but I'd love to see it restored to greatness by removing everything from 2017.
I was thinking the same thing. 8)

Dave

Thank you Dave!
 
snoman701 said:
anachronism said:
snoman701 said:
anachronism said:
OK I'll bite.

What recovery methods are available on the dark web that aren't available if you know the right people to ask anyway?

For one, recovery of PM's from satellites in orbit about the earth, by using paint can lid to shoot them down.

Really? OK.

I thought British humor was dry and witty. I actually couldn't read the above mess, all I caught was "paint can lid into the trophosphere" and walked away from the computer.

The dark web has nothing the "light web" doesn't...you just get perceived anonymity. I guess we should be happy that the above poster has not taken on building a backyard nuclear reactor as his hobby.

In all seriousness...this is/was a great thread. I know moderators are watching, but I'd love to see it restored to greatness by removing everything from 2017.

Per the underlined :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Kurt
 
FrugalRefiner said:
snoman701 said:
In all seriousness...this is/was a great thread. I know moderators are watching, but I'd love to see it restored to greatness by removing everything from 2017.
I was thinking the same thing. 8)

Dave

Dave - did you mean to move this to the Rogues Gallery :?:

I ask because I am not really seeing anything here to debate &/or discuss :roll:

The Rogues Gallery seems a very fitting place from what I have seen of Rougemillenial contributions so far :twisted:

Kurt
 
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