> On May 27, 2020, at 10:56 PM, alb.001 alb.001 <alb....@sympatico.ca> wrote: > Talk about ammonia. The thing I fear most when driving, especially on a > highway is a tanker carrying anhydrous ammonia. Several have crashed with > resultant release of clear low-hanging clouds of ammonia gas. If you drive > thru one your lungs instinctively close and you suffocate while driving at > speed. > One night I was listening to the scanner and they started toning out every fire department and rescue squad for 30 miles around. The cooling system at a local poultry plant leaked and they have to evacuate over a hundred people. Eight had to be take to the hospital which used up three quarters of the ambulances in the area. The others were treating people on site. Fortunately there were no other major incidents for several hours and even then they had rescue squads from 30 minutes away filling quarters.
I highly recommend the book Hostile Waters. It's about a Soviet nuclear missile sub that had a seawater leak into one of the missile tubes. There was a reaction with the solid rocket fuel that progressively filled the entire boat with nitric acid vapor. It's a harrowing story. You can't put the book down. It's on Amazon (buy a used copy): https://www.amazon.com/Hostile-Waters-Peter-Huchthausen/dp/0312169280 <https://www.amazon.com/Hostile-Waters-Peter-Huchthausen/dp/0312169280> They made a movie out of it. I haven't seen it but a friend told me it was crap compared to the book. > On May 27, 2020, at 10:11 PM, Nicholas Stock <nickst...@gmail.com> wrote: > > I distinctly remember the sweet smell of benzene (used as the solvent for the > reaction).....that certainly wouldn't happen today.... When I worked for a local printer the pressmen used copious amounts of something called "blanket wash". They poured the stuff onto lint-free rags and cleaned the printers with it. No gloves. I'm not sure but I think it was largely or entirely straight up benzene. > As for smells, using 300 mL of tert-butyl mercaptan isn't for the feint of > heart either....we had the fire-brigade called out a few times on that one... That's funny. I live next to a major highway and I occasionally get a whiff of something like that. Always seems to be after dark. I wonder what it could be? One of the guys on the Old Christmas Lights list told us that he used to chew the silvery tinsel they put on Xmas trees back in the Good Old Days. It was of course elemental lead. He said it had a very nice sweet taste. My freshman year in college we had a two hour lab once a week. I was appalled. No one knew how to pour from a reagent bottle or how to keep a scoop from being contaminated and the grad students running the lab didn't blink a lash. In High School our teacher spent three days on procedures and techniques like that. That summer chemistry class was a blast. I had nitric acid stains on my hands the rest of the year. Terry Bowman, KA4HJH "The Mac Doctor" “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away.”–Philip K. Dick, I Hope I Shall Arrive Soon -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to neonixie-l+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/neonixie-l/B603C0C8-44EA-414C-9EDF-178B147332C6%40gmail.com.
