• runner_gEnglish
    16·
    4 months ago

    I just want to know what base they are handling while running a gel. Seems pretty irresponsible to me.

      • BestBouclettes@jlai.luEnglish
        38·
        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.worldEnglish
          28·
          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

        • flora_explora@beehaw.orgEnglish
          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.worldEnglish
          10·
          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.worldEnglish
            5·
            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.