Mad about Science: Beyond lethal chemicals

By Brenden Bobby
Reader Columnist

There is a lot of dangerous stuff in this world. Many of us heat our homes with a gas that, if uncontrolled, can potentially leak and cause our homes to explode. A drug epidemic is raging across the world fueled by fentanyl, an artificial opiate that can kill a fully grown human with a pencil tip’s worth of the stuff. Even superglue contains enough cyanide to kill someone if left in a home oven.

As dangerous as these things are, there are some chemicals with much greater lethality — some so severe that even the Nazis thought their use was too extreme.

Chlorine trifluoride is an extremely poisonous, corrosive and reactive gas that can be pressurized into a yellow liquid at room temperature for transportation. On a danger scale of 1 to 10, this stuff ranks a solid 14. It was initially produced in Germany ahead of World War II and known as N-Stoff, or Substance N. 

Chlorine trifluoride is a fluorinating agent, which means it tears apart other molecules to replace their hydrogen atoms with fluorine and, in doing so, creates an intense exothermic reaction. This makes the stuff incredibly flammable and poisonous, which was the intention behind the Nazis trying to develop and weaponize it.

However, the chemical was so difficult to manufacture and apply safely that it became so expensive to produce that the Germans only ended up with about one-eighth of what they had projected by the time the Red Army overran the facility where it was made.

The knowledge of chlorine trifluoride’s production didn’t disappear after World War II; rather, German scientists brought their knowledge of the substance to the U.S., where it was briefly used as a rocket propellant. This was a very bad idea, illuminated when a batch of it spilled and burned through concrete and more than a meter of dirt and gravel. That’s right, chlorine trifluoride makes concrete catch fire and burn.

Interestingly, it can be stored in airtight metal containers without corrosion. These metal containers form a thin film of metal and fluoride, which keeps it stable. But if the film is scrubbed away before having time to reform, it will very violently combust. Putting out a chemical fire is tricky enough, but a poisonous chemical fire that’s burning solid steel is a whole different beast.

It’s actually still in production, used as an agent to clean the production equipment that builds semiconductors used in computers.

Another very lethal chemical is dimethylcadmium. Cadmium on its own is a pretty nasty metal, responsible for the death of countless artists throughout human history. It has a number of qualities that make it fantastic for painters, which include its brilliant hues and its ability to resist fading and weathering. Unfortunately, it’s also extremely toxic. Cadmium was often inhaled or ingested by artists, especially those that would lick their brush to maintain a sharp point for fine detail.

Fun fact for non-painters out there: brush licking is commonplace among artists. You’d think dampening a brush with water would be safer and work just as well, but you’d be half wrong. Our saliva has a certain viscosity that helps hold the bristles together better than water on its own. This is a non-issue if you’re working with acrylic paint, but it’s a pretty important thing to be aware of if you happen to be working with white lead paint or cadmium yellow paint.

Dimethylcadmium is a colorless liquid chemical compound. It reacts with oxygen when exposed to our bloodstream, which allows it to disperse a number of nasty broken-down chemicals very effectively straight to vital organs like our kidneys, lungs and liver. Acute dimethylcadmium poisoning can end your life in a few hours. If you’re fortunate enough to survive, it’s also extremely carcinogenic due to the fact that it shears electrons from your cells, effectively swinging a wrecking ball at your DNA in the process.

Dimethylcadmium is so potent that a few milligrams per cubic meter of air is considered dangerous. It also reacts violently to water with an exothermic reaction that also creates flammable hydrogen gas — the stuff that turned the Hindenburg into a pile of ashes. Friction also causes it to ignite, while allowing it to oxidize and rust creates an explosive crust when a small amount of friction is applied.

The lesson here is don’t spill dimethylcadmium, you can’t clean it up. You could try, but you’d be cleaning up body parts and the wreckage of your lab in the process.

If you happen to be writing the next great American spy thriller, hopefully today’s article gave you some fun plot devices to explore. I for one think a story about Rex Brushington saving a bunch of U.N. delegates from a concentrated dimethylcadmium spill would check out frequently at your local library.

Stay curious, 7B.