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Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

pipeline.corante.com

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Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#11

Post by po »

revelation wrote: post #7

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

This is exactly why chemistry is so interesting and the ways in which things can combine is also why it is so difficult.

Fundamentally, it's mostly about the electron charges on an atom which are balanced out by the number of protons in the nucleus. The proton however is a tightly packed point charge but the electrons can only exist in various energy levels (think of different shapes) around it.

You could think of it as trying to pack a bunch of magnets that have very elaborate electromagnetic field shapes into a box in a specific configuration. You might find one configuration that happens to be 'stable' until a big piece of iron is nearby and then suddenly it all snaps into a new configuration.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#12

Post by danieltillett »

revelation wrote: post #7

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

The science background expected is pretty high. Some things are hard to understand without the background, but in this case it is pretty easy. Explosive chemicals have bonds between the atoms that are under a lot of stress (think of it like a wound up elastic band). An explosion occurs when the stressed bond breaks (the elastic band is let go). A chemical like the one discussed has several bonds that are under massive stress (i.e the elastic band is huge and wound very tight). All it takes is the slightest bump or even a dirty look and the whole thing goes boom!

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#13

Post by adamryman »

revelation wrote: post #7

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

If you want a pretty good layman understanding of chemistry I recommend this video series. It is high paced and a little silly at times but it keeps your attention and you can rewind anything you do not understand or miss.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSyAehMdpyI&list=PL8dPuuaLjX...

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#14

Post by IgorPartola »

I came here to say that fluorine is even scarier in some ways. Sure enough he's covered it: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_sa.... I really wish he was my chem professor back in school.

Speaking of Oxygen though, I once attended a lecture/Q&A by the Myth Busters. It was pretty cool, and during the Q&A portion someone asked "Is there a myth you started, and then backed out?". They said that they won't do anything with liquid oxygen. They had a few myths about it, did some research, and realized that it can set pavement on fire. They then decided not to proceed.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#15

Post by dsl »

danieltillett wrote: post #3

Derek’s blog is one of the best blog’s I have read. If you want to learn about the pharmaceutical industry and how the process of drug discovery really works (or doesn’t work) then I recommend it highly. On topic I wouldn’t want to work with peroxide peroxides either :) Derek often has write up about what some of the really crazy organic chemists who work on unstable compounds do - truly eye opening for someone with…

My favorite is Hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane...

"There's a recent report of a method to 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."

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/11/11/things_i_won...

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#16

Post by mikeyouse »

I spent some time at the remaining facility in the country making the really interesting rocket fuel. The most fascinating thing to me (aside from the multiple armed security checkpoints required to visit the food lab we were visiting) was the setup of the buildings. Nearly all of them were ~500yds apart, set in between massive ~50ft tall, ~100ft wide earthen berms. The really interesting buildings had escape slides coming from the second floor. Each building at the roadside had the familiar NFPA diamond for response crews. I've never seen so many "4"s on that diamond in my life.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#17

Post by IgorPartola »

revelation wrote: post #7

It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

I will attempt at conveying my simplistic understanding of it (physics major here): electrons are negative, protons are positive. Electrons want to be matched with protons. Two atoms can form a strong bond if they have just enough electrons to bond them but not enough to repel each other. Oxygen can bond to oxygen via a double covalent bond (http://www.chemguide.co.uk/atoms/bonding/doublebonds.html) but it has too many electrons, so it is essentially on the brink of breaking up (much more so, than say H2O or CO2). Basically, if you have an unstable oxygen bond, many things introduced nearby can disturb it, starting a reaction.

The rest is easy: a single atom of Oxygen is extremely reactive. If you take an O=O molecule (= means double covalent bond) and add some fuel, you get fire. At high concentrations, drop in just a bit of fuel and you can get a violent reaction.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#18

Post by IgorPartola »

jameskilton wrote: post #5
danieltillett wrote: post #3

Derek’s blog is one of the best blog’s I have read. If you want to learn about the pharmaceutical industry and how the process of drug discovery really works (or doesn’t work) then I recommend it highly. On topic I wouldn’t want to work with peroxide peroxides either :) Derek often has write up about what some of the really crazy organic chemists who work on unstable compounds do - truly eye opening for someone with…

Agreed. My favorite is still any post discussing Flouride bonds, particularly FOOF http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_won...

I wonder if anyone ever did order 1 kg of the stuff.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#19

Post by refurb »

mikeyouse wrote: post #16

I spent some time at the remaining facility in the country making the really interesting rocket fuel. The most fascinating thing to me (aside from the multiple armed security checkpoints required to visit the food lab we were visiting) was the setup of the buildings. Nearly all of them were ~500yds apart, set in between massive ~50ft tall, ~100ft wide earthen berms. The really interesting buildings had escape slides…

I used to work at a pilot plant that did large scale synthesis of pharmaceuticals. The plant was a concrete structure with each reactor surrounded on three sides by two foot thick concrete walls.

The interesting thing was that there was no outside wall to the building, just a woven steel curtain. If something did explode you wanted a path for the debris. On the outside of the building was a curved ramp, like a skateboard half-pipe. That way any explosion would be directed upward rather than outward.

Re: Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

#20

Post by Retric »

IgorPartola wrote: post #14

I came here to say that fluorine is even scarier in some ways. Sure enough he's covered it: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_sa... . I really wish he was my chem professor back in school. Speaking of Oxygen though, I once attended a lecture/Q&A by the Myth Busters. It was pretty cool, and during the Q&A portion someone asked "Is there a myth you started, and then backed out?". They said that…

That's nasty, but my favorite florene compound is still the apply named FOOF also known as "Satan's kimchi".

http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/02/23/things_i_won...

"And yes, what happens next is just what you think happens: you run a mixture of oxygen and fluorine through a 700-degree-heating block. "Oh, no you don't," is the common reaction of most chemists to that proposal"

"When 0.2 (mL) of liquid 02F2 was added to 0.5 (mL) of liquid CH4 at 90°K., a violent explosion occurred."

I mean how can't you love a substance that will violently detonate things at -180C.

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