• BestBouclettes@jlai.lu
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    42
    ·
    4 months ago

    Any base that could be dangerous enough to have to evacuate a building? When thinking about bases, I’m thinking bleach

    • shneancy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      29
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      i’m not a chemist so take my words with a grain of salt -

      google says the most dangerous bases can cause skin and eye damage, and be very flammable if they were to dissolve aluminium (two different chemicals). So I guess worst case scenario you open the windows, lock the room, and come back with protective equipment to clean up your mess

      you probably wouldn’t handle something, that if dropped, would be dangerous enough to need a whole building evacuated outside of a dedicated room without wearing a full hazman suit and adhering to additional 100 precautions and safety measures

      unless you’re the sort of guy to use a screwdriver to play with the demon core, but that’s not a liquid chemical base and hopefully won’t happen again

      • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 months ago

        you probably wouldn’t handle something, that if dropped, would be dangerous enough to need a whole building evacuated outside of a dedicated room without wearing a full hazman suit and adhering to additional 100 precautions and safety measures

        You underestimate academia.

        Also, going through the old chemicals of some academic labs can lead to having the bomb squad called because they didn’t dispose of an unstable reagent 30 years ago.

    • flora_explora@beehaw.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      4 months ago

      I was curious as well and in this article the only mention of dangerous bases is tert-Butyl lithium (“t-BuLi is very pyrophoric, it readily reacts with air catching fire, that’s why it has to be handled and stored with very special care, always under a protective inert atmosphere of pure nitrogen or argon”). But in that case you couldn’t just drop it on the ground outside of a vent?

    • grue@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      BRB, looking up the pH of chlorine triflouride

      Edit: Turns out it reacts explosively with water (so it itself can’t form the aqueous solution necessary for the concept of pH to be applicable) and decomposes into two different strong acids (hydrofluoric acid and hydrochloric acid). So yeah, not a candidate for our mystery base.

      • marcos@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        ·
        edit-2
        4 months ago

        Yes, this is the kind of substance that would promptly react to protons, what would be a base-like behavior if it also didn’t promptly react to hydroxyl, what would be an acid-like behavior.

        But given that it will consistently turn water into plasma, I guess it technically has a PH of 0.

    • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      tert-butyl lithium. Ignites on contact with air. Often used in conjunction with flammable solvents, so large fires and explosions are possible when working with large enough quantities.

      As far as safety SOPs go, nearly any chemical spill of a large enough quantity warrants evacuating the area in many chemical safety plans. For some institutions, this is as little as 1 liter or 500g of material. This can obviously be overkill if you spill something that is relatively inert and non-toxic such as water or NaCl.

      • booty [he/him]@hexbear.net
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        4 months ago

        spilling a bottle of water in my house: aw shit better get the mop

        spilling a bottle of water in the lab: aw shit now we gotta evacuate and call in the chemical spill guys

        • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          I prefer to flood the entire lab if I’m going to make a scheme. Time to use the chemical shower with no drain!