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submitted 2 days ago by dohpaz42@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Aside of these signs and the address numbers, the building is completely unmarked.

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Here's my favourite warning, can you guess what it is?

[-] SoleInvictus 13 points 22 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Chlorine trifluoride! Nasty, NASTY shit. Guess which industry I worked in as safety!

Edit: I remembered this quote about ClF~3~ from John D. Clark's book "Ignition!" and wanted to share. For the non-scientists, hypergolic means it'll ignite on contact with another substance without an outside energy source, like a spark.

It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that’s the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water-with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals-steel, copper, aluminium, etc.-because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminium keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.

[-] SirQuack@feddit.nl 8 points 19 hours ago

Wikipedia screenshot of hazards of chlorine trifluoride, showing hazard symbols for explosive, corrosive, tozic and carcinogenic with the word "Danger" below it

I think "Danger" might be putting it lightly...

[-] SoleInvictus 9 points 19 hours ago

Hah! You get two signal words with GHS: caution or danger. Caution is low stakes, where you might get skin irritation or maybe a mild burn. Danger is supposed to clue you in that it will fuck you up, but there's no indicator of magnitude of fuck you up. Will it just give you a bad burn or will it melt your skin off while intercalating with your DNA?

I always wanted a third "oh helllll no" category for the really awful substances. For things like tert-Butyl hydroperoxide (it's a straight 4-4-4) or Osmium tetroxide.

[-] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

Same dude. Like signal word "Fuck" for the spiciest of chemicals that really probably shouldn't exist in the first place that are desperately trying not to exist

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this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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