Post by James NicollIgnition! by John Drury Clark
https://jamesdavisnicoll.com/review/rocket-man
This book is perhaps best known for its description of chlorine
trifluoride, a potent oxidizer, described by clark thusly:
All this sounds fairly academic and innocuous, but when it is
translated into the problem of handling the stuff, the results
are horrendous. It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's
the least of the problems. 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, aluminum, 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 aluminum
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.
Clark then goes on to describe a one-ton spill of the stuff at a
chemical plant, which by some miracle didn't kill anyone.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | "Act to avoid constraining the future; if you can,
***@bimajority.org| act to remove constraint from the future. This is
Opinions not shared by| a thing you can do, are able to do, to do together."
my employers. | - Graydon Saunders, _A Succession of Bad Days_ (2015)