.masks and breast-plates of sheet iron worn by observers during times of danger. Try one more set of practice questions with a slightly more complicated reaction. I really have to salute the dedication involved in finding that out, though - after two or three violent explosions, you or I might be tempted to just say that we couldn't determine the products of the reaction. But now, thanks to neuroprosthetic technology we can tap into nerve and brain function, and rewire these lost connections. . It only takes a minute to sign up. An explanation of the molecular geometry for the ClF3 (Chlorine trifluoride) including a description of the ClF3 bond angles. But it can also kill the people trying to use it as a weapon. in tempus justo mattis vel, tristique porta. Speaking of which, when chlorine trifluoride comes into contact with water, it will react explosively with it and as a fun byproduct creates large amounts of dangerous gasses such as hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid. The compound causes severe irritation to mucous membranes, eyes, and skin, and on exposure to the Chlorine Trifluoride gas, it can cause lung damage. The compound is primarily of interest in and etching operations in the semiconductor industry, in nuclear reactor fuel processing, as a . An editorially independent blog, all content is Dereks own, and he does not in any way speak for his employer. You may observe the mild reactivity of this gentle substance as it encounters various common laboratory materials, and draw your own conclusions. Overview of the IDLH Value for Chlorine Trifluoride. No, elemental fluorine has commanded respect since well before anyone managed to isolate it, a process that took a good fifty years to work out in the 1800s. Physical state. That process, I should add, would necessarily have been accompanied by copious amounts of horribly toxic and corrosive by-products: its bad enough when your reagent ignites wet sand, but the clouds of hot hydrofluoric acid are your special door prize if youre foolhardy enough to hang around and watch the fireworks. The products of hydrolysis are mainly hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid, which are usually released as steam or vapor due to the highly exothermic nature of the reaction. Flash of fireworks, ship shell floating off into space, crew subjected to the horrors of radiation. After all, its a substance that reacts explosively with water (humans are largely bags of water), and for those that dont come in contact with it directly, theres the byproduct of the deadly gasses. bad. But the stuff would make for a great story. The elongated Cl-F axial bonds are consistent with hypervalent bonding. Rejoice, in your enemy's gullibility and that you just cut the head off their science division barely getting your own hands dusty. @Peteris, Your explanation translates to, "the process of making a nuclear bomb is a better bomb than a nuclear bomb." The space, however, is made of space, lots of it :) So typically, there will be quite a bunch of space between you and your enemy, be it spaceship combat or orbital bombardment. This colorless, poisonous, corrosive, and extremely reactive gas condenses to a pale-greenish yellow liquid, the form in which it is most often sold (pressurized at room temperature). ClF3 reacts violently with water and exposure to the reaction also results in burns. ut non et, dapibus. Sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste can all be affected, diminishing their experience of the world. Are laser-stars the better missile carriers in space warfare? rate = - [A]/ t. In the nuclear industry, chlorine trifluoride is used to prepare uranium hexafluoride, a volatile compound of uranium used in the separation or uranium isotopes. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope (P.S.) CIF3 is an effective oxidizer, one that's arguably too effective. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. Chlorine trifluoride is an interhalogen compound with the formula ClF3. One of the main uses of ClF3 is to produce uranium hexafluoride, UF6, as part of nuclear fuel processing and reprocessing, by the fluorination of uranium metal: The compound can also dissociate under the scheme: In the semiconductor industry, chlorine trifluoride is used to clean chemical vapour deposition chambers. Chemist John D. Clark, who had firsthand experience dealing with CIF3 in developing rocket fuel, had this to say about the stuff: "It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. If you've seen a shooting star on a recent stargazing jaunt, you've spotted the very beginning of the Orionids meteor shower. . For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes.. FOOF is the sound you make when you make some FOOF. Any equipment that comes into contact with ClF3 must be meticulously cleaned and then passivated, because any contamination left may burn through the unfluorinated material faster than it can re-form. How can space-mines be improved as a viable weapons in interplanetary space warefare? Connecting with the enemy ship is the hardest part. Even the nukes do their job via a nuclear reaction, but that reaction isn't run at our military bases, ships or planes; a projectile starting that reaction when it arrives is used as a weapon instead. That details the fun you can have with chloride trifluoride, and believe me, it continues (along with its neighbor, bromine trifluoride) to be on the "Things I Won't Work With" list. Use Raster Layer as a Mask over a polygon in QGIS, How small stars help with planet formation. Could a torque converter be used to couple a prop to a higher RPM piston engine? Fluorine is known as the most powerful oxidizing agent out of all the elements in fact, it's so reactive that it turns water into oxygen on contact. Not sure about sword-chucks, but sword fights. So this is true cost Peter is one Coffee Table to one. Dang! Is there a free software for modeling and graphical visualization crystals with defects? Stross is good at postulating alternate causes that sound potentially plausible if you accept a ridiculous starting point. Again, more conventional munitions would probably be sufficient to cripple a ship from the inside, and your ship will probably have some onboard already. @JBH highly reactive and highly explosive substances are useful as weapons because they essentially contain large, concentrated amount of available chemical energy that can be delivered upon the target. Director. Well, it's been a bit too serious around here this week. [F-]. That details the fun you can have with chloride trifluoride, and believe me, it continues (along with its neighbor, bromine trifluoride) to be on the Things I Wont Work With list. It boils at 12 (so that a trivial pressure will keep it liquid at room temperature) and freezes at a convenient 76. Azidoazide Azide Storage and Weaponization. New blog post from our CEO Prashanth: Community is the future of AI, Improving the copy in the close modal and post notices - 2023 edition. It's a spacious game preserve, that territory, and over the gate is the ornate motto Noli me tangere. Now, sure, you can handle chlorine trifluoride safely . Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides, Things I Won't Work With: Frisky Perchlorates. Pretty self-explanatory. There's a report from the early 1950s (in this PDF) of a one-ton spill of the stuff. Would Chlorosian photosynthesizers produce chlorine or oxygen? Exposure to larger amounts of ClF3, as a liquid or as a gas, ignites living tissue, resulting in severe chemical and thermal burns. Derek Lowes commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry. As an example of the kind of devastation chlorine trifluoride can have, you only need to consider what happened when almost a ton of this stuff was accidentally spilled inside of a warehouse in the 1950s. Chlorine trifluoride is an interhalogen compound with the chemical formula ClF3. It'd be an excellent oxidizer for rocketry, except for the fact that it sets everything on fire - including things like aluminum plate, people, water, concrete and sand. Chlorine trifluoride is a chemical which should only be handled by professionals. read the whole thing, read it, chlorine trifluoride, chemistry horror stories. A planet's density tells us more information than its size. The spaceship gets hit by something, causing a breach that releases chlorine trifluoride and unleashes hell. As a gas, chlorine trifluoride is colourless and has a notably sweet and pungent odour not dissimilar from pool chlorine. The reaction here also doesnt require atmospheric oxygen to burn, so trying to use that method of fire suppression wont work either. According to eyewitness reports, the chemical burned straight through a foot of concrete and three feet of gravel while simultaneously releasing a deadly cloud of gas containing a cocktail of chlorine trifluoride, hydrogen fluoride, chlorine and hydrogen chloride that corroded every surface it came into contact with. How? The stuff could be used as an incredibly effective chemical weapon that was also cheap to produce. Sand Won't Save You This Time (the prequel to Chlorine Trifluoride: Some Empirical Findings) is also worth the read. Ah, but that is their essential character. Chlorine trifluoride is prepared by the reaction Cl2 (g) + 3F2 (g)2ClF3 (g). (Yes, people have actually done this.) As if that wasnt worrying enough, if youre ever unlucky enough to get hydrofluric acid on your skin, it doesnt actually hurt until a few hours later. Best of all, it cannot be put out by venting atmos, as the only way to put out a ClF3 fire is by flooding the area with nitrogen or noble gases, a nearly impossible proposition in space. Chlorine pentafluoride (ClF5) has also been investigated as a potential rocket oxidizer. If it's not perfectly treated, then kaboom goes the vessel. Sure, it can kill people and destroy equipment. FOOF is the most onomatipoetic compound known to man. . What is the hardest part of being a scientist. 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. Some of this, under ordinary circumstances, might be considered protective equipment. How Can You Be a Steward of Good Tech in 2023? Once you hit the enemy, the shell must be strong enough to penetrate the hull and deliver the payload. What you're trying to do is to create CIF3 atmosphere to burn enemies, but venting it to space would vent it like any other atmosphere. Here's what you need to know(updated August 11, 2022). I do not dispute your basic assertion because the conclusion is also true: the delivery of the manufacturing process in the context of a weapon is almost always more complex than simply delivering the weapon - which is why we drop nuclear bombs rather than the manufacturing processes that build the bombs. All rights reserved. HDE 226868 is absolutely correct, it would be the height of insanity to use this stuff in space combat but that doesn't mean it wouldn't make one whale of a good story. Overall, there is little to gain from conventional munitions with this approach. And that's at room temperature. Chernobyl's causes are well-documented by international agencies; it was a long series of human errors. In a comment to my post on putting out fires last week, one commenter mentioned the utility of the good old sand bucket, and wondered if there was anything that would go on to set the sand on fire. And if anyone needs any more proof as to why, I present this video, made at some point by some French lunatics. Imagine doing that from some ancient battle in a "million-to-one chances happen all the time" Star-Trek-ish sort of way. Are there some dangerous experiments that scientists/physicists are too afraid to execute? But not here. Some things are better left alone. So the obvious solution is to drop a machine producing ClF3 upon your enemy. 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. @jdunlop Thanks. Stargazers rejoice! Boils at 53F. I dropped the wrench and blew up the missile!" It is an extremely strong oxidant and decomposes into oxygen and fluorine even at 160 C (113 K) at a rate of 4% per day its lifetime at room temperature is thus extremely short. In particular, CIF3 would make for perfectly destructive flamethrowers and bombs. It remains, with its chemical relatives, off in a part of chemical science that's safe from human exploitation. Thats one of those statements you dont get to hear very often, and it should be enough to make any sensible chemist turn around smartly and head down the hall in the other direction. It is not. 2.1.2 Odor 2.1.3 2.1,11 Chlorine trifluoride odor has been re~orted as both sweet ~nd pungent, similar to chlorine or mustard. From hisout-of-printclassicIgnition! rev2023.4.17.43393. Chlorine trifluoride (which I will subsequently refer to as ClF 3) is one of the most reactive oxidising compounds known. Kecuali dinyatakan lain, data di atas berlaku pada temperatur dan tekanan standar (25 C [77 F], 100 kPa). Chlorine trifluoride is prepared by the reactionCl2(g) + 3F2(g) 2ClF3(g). . Your email address will not be published. This is an answer the God Emperor approves of. Staying power, that's what I call it. In movies, fighters are orders of magnitude too close and far too slow. Q&A for work. Chlorine trifluoride, ClF 3 , or "CTF" as the engineers insist on calling it, is a colorless gas, a greenish liquid, or a white solid. we have: It is, of course, extremely toxic, but thats the least of the problem. Chlorine trifluoride and gases like it have been reported to ignite sand, asbestos, and other highly fire-retardant materials. This technical report presents the IDLH value for chlorine trifluoride (CAS No. A little bit of danger can be exciting. If stirring be omitted until the maximum turbidity is attained, the slightest agitation results in a detonation that demolishes the apparatus. "Things I Won't Work With" : Chlorine Trifluoride. In one particular industrial accident, a spill of 900kg of ClF3 burned through 30cm of concrete and 90cm of gravel beneath. Scientists in China Discover Rare Moon Crystal that Could Power Earth, When Well Know if NASAs Asteroid Impact Test was a Success, What Screaming Black Holes are Telling Us, The First Native American Woman Travels into Space with NASA's Crew-5 Mission. 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. So I thought today I'd step back to a period when men were men and chlorine azide was a reactive, toxic, and unstable compound that was only good for finding out what sort of explosion it would set off next. Notably tough elements like titanium and tungsten are also regarded as being wholly unsuitable to storing the chemical because they set on fire as soon as they come into contact with it. In an industrial accident, a spill of 900 kg of chlo. 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