chemical accident report, deaths
some light reading for the morning. and viewing
don't scale up an exothermic reaction from one liter to 2500 liters and then go straight into production with it
https://www.csb.gov/t2-laboratories-inc-reactive-chemical-explosion/
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@Alyx scale up an exothermic reaction 2500 times and go straight into production? Yikes - I am not surprised that went Badly™. 😰
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@packbat it was _terrible_. liquid sodium metal was a reactant! and the only cooling was one external water jacket supplied by city water
once cooling failed the whole thing went up like a literal kiloton of TNT
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@packbat the stuff they were making, an organomanganese compound called methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl (how's that for a name!) isn't even super useful in my opinion. they tried to push it as a replacement for tetraethyllead as an antiknock compound and what I've read about it seems like it's kinda...pointless these days. adding antiknock magic to gas is something you do only because you wanna be sloppy with engine design and refining fuel
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@packbat guess there's probably a lot of engines out there (even now) that still need a "leaded" fuel to function, and this manganese stuff would be a substitute. but, bleh...I always feel like there are better ways
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@Alyx I hope so...
re: chemical accident report, deaths
@Alyx it's never just one bad idea or unlucky break that leads to a disaster, is it? eesh.