Sciencemadness Discussion Board - A slight problem...

A slight problem...

Jordan - 29-8-2016 at 21:09

Hi all, I'm new to the forum, I found you guys on Google. I feel really embarrassed bringing this topic to you, but I do need help. Before you berate me, know that "STUPID, STUPID, STUPID" has already been beaten into me by my own mind over and over. I know my mistakes, I will never do them again.

I decided to synthesize sodium cyanide in order to experiment with gold plating and gold extractions. My nephew gets junk computer parts all the time and it could be interesting (and lucrative) to extract the gold over a time period. More likely to be a hobby than anything else, as I'm a coin collector and gold plating seems fun. In my former neighborhood a friend did it, and showed me the process. So I thought why not?

I've taken uni chemistry so I thought I could handle this reaction. Turns out that I'm an effing idiot.

I decided to react sodium hydroxide, carbon, and cyanuric acid at high heat in my backyard. Took all reasonable safety precautions... no other humans around, no animals, I chose a fairly windy day, wore a respirator, eyewear, covered all skin, wore double nitrile gloves, fire extinguisher, and even with all this I stood way back from the reaction because who knows right?

Completed the reaction. Dug out the hard salts from the heating vessel after it cooled, hammered them under a cloth to break them down (the hardest part), placed them in methanol to dissolve. The stirring took forever and the salts weren't breaking down, so I added more methanol. Still no luck. So I decided to cover the solution and place it in a safe place for a day and then it break down a bit on its own.

Big mistake.

Next day... went to uncover the solution to keep stirring it, and was poisoned instantly. From the second I smelled the contained gas to the time I was on my bed in the house hyperventilating and going unconscious was 30 seconds or less. Probably didn't inhale enough PPM to kill me instantly. Turns out the respirator I used wasn't the right kind so I had been at risk the entire time. My mad dash back into my house was stupid but instinctual. One of the first signs of poisoning is sheer terror. I laid flat on the bed and didn't move one iota as to not consume oxygen, and prayed to god I wasn't a goner. Took about three hours but I came to.

Unfortunately I dropped the erlenmeyer flask on the concrete while taking the mad dash, spilling toxic methanol / NaCN / probably some HCN everywhere.

Because I live in a rural area and my neighbors are far away, I opted to leave it where it was and just avoid my backyard like the plague for 24 hours. Shut all windows/doors to my backyard, and waited. It's hot here and within a day the solution evaporated, leaving the salts everywhere. My lawn is probably more deeply contaminated. Yes, I am well aware of the environmental mess I've created, and that I'm an idiot. But please feel free to repeat that fact more times because I can't do it enough for myself.

Went out and attempted to gently sweep things up. Got another dose of inhaled CN, not as bad this time, but enough that I was thinking, "Jesus H Christ I am never doing this shit again." Went back inside, waited another day. The problem is that even with a low dose exposure, your body uses up all its thiosulphate to detox it, so further exposures a short time later are more likely to be fatal.

Day 3, opted to use hypochlorite to decontaminate the area. Poured it everywhere that I could see NaCN salts. I tried to pour it in excess in order to keep the PH high and I added a bit of H2O2 ahead of time, but because it was being poured on a flat surface and the NaCN chunks had varying sizes, the completion of the reaction was dubious.

So I'm wondering what to do next. Even with a respirator I'm concerned about inhaling more. No longer feeling confident that I even know which respirator to use in this situation. I was using a P95 and it was sealed perfectly to my face when this happened. I'm assuming air exposure in general will have converted some to cyanate, but usually that takes place in heated reactions, not just sitting around willy nilly. Also concerned that the hypochlorite may not have completely done the job. Not to mention my backyard probably has cyanide in the dirt.

The other problem is that this is time sensitive, as we're due for rain any day now... and the last thing this disaster needs is the addition of H2O.

Any advice on containing this mess? I'd rather not call poison control and deal with all the questions. I'm the only human being involved in this problem and would rather keep it that way. Would be nice to be able to enjoy my backyard again without concerns of imminent death.

Yes... I almost joined the ranks of the darwin awards. Maybe I should stick to vinegar and baking soda volcanoes at the local elementary school. *sigh*

[Edited on 30-8-2016 by Jordan]

woelen - 30-8-2016 at 02:12

How much of the reagents did you use in this experiment? You must have used a LOT of it if it can poison you while being outside on a breezy day.

I myself once had a nasty little accident with NaCN. I had purchased 100 grams of it. It was in a little plastic bag and I wanted to pour the solid in a glass bottle with a proper screw cap. When I did this, the little bag sagged under the weight of the NaCN and all of it spilled on my workbench and some of it fell on the floor as well. This was inside!
I could recover maybe 70% or so, the rest had dust and other crap on it and I mopped up that amount with a wet towel. No issues at all. The worst thing was that I lost appr. 30% of my precious NaCN.
I tell this story, because it is in strong contrast with what you experienced. I only have two possible explanations:
1) You used an insane amount of reagents, so that you had lots of cyanide around.
2) You paniced. Panic is the worst thing which can happen in this kind of situations. Maybe your panic caused you to go down when you sniffed some of the cyanide. Panic can cause people to faint and can have an after-effect lasting for several hours (weak feeling, nausea, difficulty with breathing)

If you did not have an insane amount of reagents, but just at most a few hundreds of grams, then I would not worry at all. Just let the rain come. It will dissolve the cyanide and the dissolved cyanide quickly is destroyed. In nature, the half life of cyanide is only appr. 24 hours and having it wet makes the half life even shorter.
I would not add other chemicals, this only adds more contamination. The methanol will be gone by now, it will have evaporated completely. The hypochlorite also will be gone. Its half-life is even shorter than cyanide's half-life, it will be converted to chloride.

If you do not grow vegatables in your backyard, which are intended for food, then there is no problem at all. If you have vegatables, then I would not eat the vegetables near the place where you spilled the cyanide. If, however, it still takes several weeks before you eat them, then again, I see no real problem.

Again, all the above is under the assumption that you did not use insane amounts of reagents (kilos).

phlogiston - 30-8-2016 at 02:27

What size is the contaminated area you need to deal with? How much cyanide is there in total? Would it be feasable to dig up the contaminated soil, contain and treat it? (wearing proper protection ofcourse)

There are antidotes that help to some extent cyanide poisoining, some of which are easy to obtain such as vitamin B12 and nitrites.

Where I live, gasmasks that are suitable for hydrogen cyanide are called type B and have a grey color coding, but you do not state your location so a different coding system may be in place where you live.
I find it puzzling that you apparently got poisoned by inhalation, unless your mixture or methanol is acidic.
But given that you apparently did, I think you should use a full face device that protects against air-suspended particulate matter as well as hydrogen cyanide.

Good luck, and please report back to let us know you're alive...

[Edited on 30-8-2016 by phlogiston]

Praxichys - 30-8-2016 at 05:43

If you have survived this far, you're going to be just fine.

Hypochlorite instantly destroys cyanide. As long as you're sure you have sprayed the area well, just avoid it for a few days and let the rain do its work. If you're very concerned about the rain, you can also spread sodium bicarbonate to keep everything basic and prevent HCN formation. This will not be a problem unless you dumped stuff on a multi-kg scale, at which point you're going to need a shovel, some buckets, and a whole lot of pool chlorinator.

Environmentally there is essentially no consequence. Over time all of it will oxidize and be used by soil bacteria, if it hasn't already.

I would advise when working with cyanide to have some alkyl nitrites available. They can give you a boost if you feel like passing out and give you extra seconds to get help. However, it is unlikely based on the information you have provided that there is much concern over HCN exposure.

I don't know much about your setup but you should never rely on a respirator as your first line of defense. Respirators are for particles or tiny amounts of chemical gases that manage to escape the fume hood, and should not be your primary method of exposure prevention. Respirators have efficiencies and do let small quantities of things through, and these quantities increase as their contents are used up. It is difficult to determine when exactly you need to change filters, hence the danger in relying on them this way.

It could be that small, constant exposure to the cyanides you were working with eventually depleted your body's ability to neutralize CN-, whereupon you began to feel some of the effects. However, based on the reaction conditions, It could (as woelen mentions) have been psychosomatic, a mixture of mild poisoning and lots of panic.

Anecdote time:

I did this to myself with ethenone once.

I started feeling faint in the lab with the ketene generator going. I couldn't shake the feeling, and it followed me to the upstairs computer room where I kept checking and re-checking symptoms of ketene poisoning - notably the severe untreatable lung damage. It seemed to get worse even though I was in fresh air, getting to the point where my ears were ringing and I was getting tunnel-vision. Extremely concerned for my safety, aborted the reaction and quenched the apparatus using the emergency procedures I had in place.

I thought I was poisoned, but turns out that worrying about it so much gave me the first "panic attack" I've ever experienced. I had to force myself to eat for a couple days and if I ate more than a snack I would throw up. I walked around the house feeling heart palpitations and feeling faint enough to need to sit down, obsessively checking my vitals every couple of minutes. I'd wake up in the dead of night breathing hard like I was out of breath and it took hours to calm myself enough to fall back into nightmares. I eventually went to the doc after 60-something agonizing hours with some huge story made up about an acetone fire. He checked my lung function, PO2, complete bloodwork for heavy metals (I work with a lot of Hg) and liver function. In the end, he told me I was medically fine and that it was probably a "panic attack" which sort of threw me because I'm generally hard to faze and have always assumed I had the self control not to work myself up like that.

Anyway, the guy gave me lorazepam and told me to take one before bed each night for 15 days. I took the first pill, slept like a rock, and was instantly fine the next day - fine enough to have skipped the other 14 pills, which I still have more than a year later. I still sometimes feel the panic building up but for some reason the thought that I have those pills and can stop it any time has made me never actually need another one.

I went on to try the ketene synth again under exactly the same conditions and was completely successful after overcoming a few small panic-y moments early on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9sPlMkYEIw Anyway, the moral of the story is that psychosomatic responses can really mess with your head.

Jordan - 30-8-2016 at 10:19

No, I didn't use lots of reagents, but last night I figured out something important in all of my research. I have really low hemoglobin right now... long story. I get blood transfusions every couple of months. Might've been that the small amount I inhaled was too much to handle.

I too am confused as to why the methanol solution would've off-gased, it doesn't make sense.

I think the second "poisoning" when I went back outside might've psychosomatic, but the first one wasn't. With the first one, I was in momentary denial because it "couldn't have possibly been HCN", and then I started to get all the symptoms within 5 seconds. The panic didn't help, but the physical symptoms were real. Even when I laid perfectly still for those couple of hours, I was very tachycardic, easily over 120bpm. Couldn't feel my fingers and toes and if I moved at all from the supine position I started suffocating again. Face and finger tips were red.

Good to know about the environmental breakdown. I used about 150g of cyanuric acid so it sounds like I'm in the clear. I can't afford of a proper fume hood and after this experience I'm not really confident about making my own for this kind of reaction.

phlogiston - 30-8-2016 at 15:42

Although the symptoms may have been real, tachycardy is certainly also associated with panic. Cyanosis is not usually a noticeable symptom for acute cyanide poisoning and you are not mentioning some symptoms that commonly occur (eg. nausea). Real or not, it does not matter. You learned a lesson and the panic is really helpful to burn the lesson into your mind.

Magpie - 30-8-2016 at 15:49

Doesn't cyanosis cause the extremities to turn blue?

j_sum1 - 30-8-2016 at 16:52

Another lesson to learn here is to be forearmed with knowledge.
I did not feel the liberty to comment when I first saw your post since I know precious little about cyanides. But if (when) I do play with more hazardous chemicals it is good to be very familiar with the reagents, the products and the possible byproducts. Book knowledge of properties and equipment setup is fine but insufficient. I learn well from watching and that is why I value YT clips so much. Also anecdotes and discussions such as these are extremely valuable. It is the intimate knowledge that comes from actual working with these kinds of things that keeps you safe. And with some chems it is better to glean from others than have the hard experience yourself. This knowledge also protects you from panic.

It is that kind of intimate knowledge on chemicals and procedures that keeps me coming back to SM. It is like the chemicals are friends -- people know them well. I have not found any other place that transfers that kind of knowledge. So, stick around Jordan. You have already contributed something meaningful and important.

blogfast25 - 30-8-2016 at 17:01

One definite lesson to be learned here, among others: try stuff like that on a very small scale first. A few gram, no more.

I wish you a full and speedy recovery, Jordan. Count your blessings.

[Edited on 31-8-2016 by blogfast25]

Texium - 30-8-2016 at 18:31

Another thing worth noting is if you have been receiving blood transfusions or otherwise already have a weakened cardiovascular system... don't mess with -CN or CO! If it's a temporary thing, wait until you've recovered. If it's permanent, you're probably better off not doing it at all.

I don't want to discourage you from exploring other aspects of chemistry though. You just started off with something that shouldn't be messed with by someone inexperienced, and you ended up having a bad experience with it. There's a ton of safer but still rewarding things out there that you can try.

Melgar - 30-8-2016 at 19:19

They use cyanide by the ton for leaching gold from ore, with practically zero loss of life or environmental contamination. It breaks down on its own in the soil, and HCN is lighter than air, so it dissipates on its own pretty quickly, and is broken down in short order by UV in the atmosphere. They actually tried using it as a chemical weapon during World War I, but it didn't work for this reason. Maybe that'll make you feel better?

pneumatician - 30-8-2016 at 22:20

well and what is the big mistake? If you do the same procedure like your friend for what reason you ended poisoned? you used the same brand of chems? the exact procedure? for what reason your salts not dissolve?

nobody here have no idea.

I are sensitive to odors from anything other than "normal". soap, house cleaning products, idiots with the car engine running minutes and more minutes near my window... some days ago I burn some eggs shells and automatically and unconsciously my body start to "revolutionizing" with this simple odor untill I take the control and internally say: "stop this shit now!!!"

of course is very efective.

so the best you can do is IGNORE the internal nonsense unless of course you have REAL and SERIOUS symptoms. for what reason you don't have an antidote at hand?? milk??? white of eggs??? activated carbon???
In the exclusion area of Chernobil where official science say: if live here die in some days, months... but this is cowshit!!! this area is full of old womens living and eathing plants and livestock and no problem, if you ignore this official mantrashit of course...

oh my GOd!!!!! mind over matter, oh no GOD!!!

so never is enough precautions no matter what books say, for what reason play russian roulete? for what reason you put a stopper in a volatile poison and open the flask with the flask in your hand? for what reason you don't use a old container full of sand? and open outdors with wind at your favor? for what reason you want recover a little gold with this shit if exist other methods more securely and elegant?

http://atheistsoc.susu.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/s...

http://65.media.tumblr.com/2601bf4b46c2785c918668e47f08ea79/...

http://www.strangerdimensions.com/2014/12/09/strange-inventi...

CuReUS - 30-8-2016 at 23:15

Quote: Originally posted by phlogiston

Cyanosis is not usually a noticeable symptom for acute cyanide poisoning

actually,it is . I read in a book http://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/poisons_thei... that when the emperor Nero poisoned his son britannica using HCN , his son turned blue,started convulsing and then died.

Quote: Originally posted by Jordan

I have really low hemoglobin right now... long story.

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

Another thing worth noting is if you have been receiving blood transfusions or otherwise already have a weakened cardiovascular system... don't mess with -CN

just to clear the misconception,CN stops respiration at the cellular level by inhibiting the mitochondrial enzyme cytochrome C.So it doesn't matter whether you have high or low Hb.Hb just carries the O₂ to the cell.
CO on the other hand binds to Hb and reduced Hb's O₂ carrying capacity.So having low Hb is bad for you

NEMO-Chemistry - 31-8-2016 at 04:54

Nothing like you did and i wasnt going to say anything, but i had some nitrogen dioxide generated in a reaction.

very small amount as it looked more like chlorine than the dark brown monster, but as nitric acid was used and i cant see any source of Chloride it has to be NO₂.

Anyway i wondered what it smelled like! So carefully took the flask off the top and edge my face closer until i could smell something.

Now to me if it was NO₂ in low concentration then it smells ALOT like indoor swimming pools in the UK! Not exactly chlorine like but very close to it.

I actually really like the smell, but anyway later that night i had one hell of a sore throat and a bit of pain on the right hand side of my back.

So i went digging on google and sure enough all the symptoms of poisoning! Sore throat stinging, nose and pain from oedema in the right lung.

Now the funny part, i confess my sins to parents and get taken to A&E at 11pm. I explained everything and they did a whole lot of tests including an xray of my chest.

Now turns out my nose probably wasnt stinging, i had likely imagined it. But i had no fluid on the lungs but did have noise, everything came back negative except a blood test that showed i had an infection!

So here we are a week or so later and i still have a bit of a headache, my nose is now really sore but i have stopped coughing. My chest feels much better and i am sure in a couple more days my COLD will have cleared up completely

.

Yep turns out my google poisoning turned out to be coincidence with a cold, i probably had a few of the symptoms for a couple of days, like a bit of discomfort in my back on one side (slight chest infection).

It goes to show how as soon as you do something stupid and reach for google your doomed, sniffing the red monster is a bad idea but i must have barely caught a wiff (i really like the smell). But it was enough for me to panic and do a google!

Funny if i hadnt of tried to smell it then i would have thought nothing of the symptoms and woke up knowing i had a bit of a cold on the way, except this is a bit closer to MAN FLU than a simple cold

Texium - 31-8-2016 at 05:42

Quote: Originally posted by CuReUS

Quote: Originally posted by zts16

Another thing worth noting is if you have been receiving blood transfusions or otherwise already have a weakened cardiovascular system... don't mess with -CN

Oh, I'm sorry for spreading misinformation. I had been under the impression that -CN and CO had the same mechanism of action.

woelen - 31-8-2016 at 05:54

I perfectly recognize NEMO's feelings, but I could resolve the issue rationally.

Imagine NEMO's situation. He has a bottle of 100 ml or so with very dilute NO2 in it. Let's be very conservative and say that he still has 10% NO2 in his mix (in reality it will be much lower).

Next, NEMO carefully sniffs and smells a little bit of this gas mix. How muc hdid he inhale? Maybe 1 ml (diluted with at least the tenfold amount of air). But again, let's be very conservative and say that NEMO inhaled 10 ml of his dilute gas mix. This results in inhalation of 1 ml of pure NO2 (in reality it will be MUCH less, but let's assume this is the amount).

Now look at the documentation on toxicity of NO2. How many mg do you have to inhale before you get serieus symptoms. Let's assume that 10 mg is enough to get serious issues (again, this is VERY low, there are very few chemicals which are deadly at such low doses, e.g. HCN requires appr. 50 mg to be inhaled AND absorbed).

Your 1 ml of NO2 is 1/22400 part of 1 mole. This is just 2 mg. I have taken multiple steps where I used way too high estimates and in the final step, your inhaling, you certainly did not absorb 100% of all NO2 in your breathing.

Using this kind of reasoning, you can see that careful inhaling a single whiff of a gas cannot cause really severe issues. Of course, when you deeply inhale from a large bottle of pure gas, then things can be totally different, but that is a stupid thing to do. I myself also carefully smell gases if I make them, just to get aquainted with their smell and know when they escape during a reaction. I smelled gases like SO2, NO2, ONCl, Cl2, Br2, NH3 and many others. There are only very few chemicals which really must be avoided, also in small amounts. Among these are volatile arsenic, selenium and mercury compounds. These, however, are not normally encountered in home-chemistry experiments, at least not unknowingly.

NEMO-Chemistry - 31-8-2016 at 07:44

₂The gas producer i still have! Long storey short i am trying to work out what is in a bag of 2 maybe 3 chemicals that have been mixed.

I am going to post it in the what am i thread at some point. But the likely candidates from what i was told were Magnesium carbonate and citric acid. This may or may not also have some glycerine in.

I got the stuff from school and it had been in a bag for 2-3 years and forgotten about, they used to do a demo in chemistry on the first day and this was part of the mix used.

Anyway the stuff has gone a bit yellow and mostly rock hard lumps that refuse to dissolve in water!! It just sits and floats on top of water.

So i tried to get it to dissolve or react, i couldnt get it to do much except froth a little after heavy shaking.

I added 10ml of 30% nitric acid to 200 ml water and put a good half handful (scientific half handful) of substance in large flask and shook. Absolutely nothing happened!!

So i left it on the bench with another flask with a little water in, covering the top.

Several days later i notice the stuff still floating on the acid solution but with a white foam/froth on top and some crystals (small and clear) on the sides of the flask above the froth (i will give more details in the other thread when i post it with some pics).

Under the powder above the acid was a slight layer of light yellow gas, my guess was NO₂, but i was sceptical. If you shake the flask up and swirl it around you get some bubbles and more of the gas. It isnt alot of gas and its only ever so slightly red(ish).

So your definitely right in the assumption that i inhaled an extremely tiny amount! As i said it smelled alot like a swimming pool and i found it not unpleasant.

Everything i have read on NO₂ lead me to believe if you smell any concentration then its major unpleasant and coughing etc. I didnt get this so again the amount was tiny.

The thing is though when you smell something and only vaguely know anything about it except its dangerous, then the mind takes over if you get any symptoms.

My runny nose is now sore, but was it sore before i read google? I honestly dont know, i did and still do have some discomfort on the right hand side of my back. But this is now clearly a slight chest infection associated with my cold.

The sore throat was probably well on its way when i smelled the gas, i didnt get any symptoms until maybe 6-8 hours after.

Not once did it occur to me i had a cold! Because i had sniffed a dangerous gas i went off half cocked and ended up convincing myself i was about to become seriously ill (although man flu is serious).

I way over reacted and in hindsight was slightly stupid. Would i be tempted to smell an unknown gas again? Yes probably, nest time though i will make sure i know the limits and risks and i wont go into a panic at the slightest sign

.

On the other hand i wont take chances with very serious gasses, for instance Phosgene is said to smell like hay, i love the smell of hay but i am happy to take others word for how it smell's.

Chlorine i have smelt in low concentration by accident, again the amount was tiny but more powerful than NO₂. I have no wish to smell it again!

The chlorine gave me zero symptoms except a slightly burning sensation in my throat and nose, funny thing is chlorine dosnt smell at all like bleach or swimming pools to me!

HCl i have smelt a few times when using conc Hydrochloric Acid, i hate the smell, it also really irritates my throat and nose. I cant stand the stuff and prefer working with lower concentrations until i get a fume hood.

So i understand why the OP worried, i also worried. But i think its important to do as Woelen as did and try and think about it clearly before reaching for the medical books and going into a panic.

In my case had i been using Acetone or something else then when i felt unwell and sore throat etc i wouldnt have blamed the Acetone, i would have thought i had a cold on the way. Its when you know you have contacted something you shouldnt that the mind takes over.

As an aside i have tested the underside of the flask that sits on the flask with the brew in, it turns litmus Deep red. So the gas has to be NO₂ as the droplets on the underside of the flask are very Acidic.

I am guessing i must have ended up with Tri magnesium Citrate, as everything else seems far more soluble in water, i still dont know if it has/had any glycerine added.

I wont hijack (sorry about that), but i will stick it in the other thread with some pics.

EDIT

You mentioned Mercury, apparently when my dad was in primary school in the late 60's early seventies, they used to give them Mercury to play with if it was raining during break time!!

He said they used to roll small beads of it around the desk if they couldnt go outside to play. He would of been around 6-8 at the time!

He grew up near a town in England well known years ago for making hats. Apparently most of the population of the town (many many years ago) were mad.

It was said that in Victorian times the town was considered bedevilled and that the reason they made such fine hats was because they had done a deal with the devil, the price was madness.

Its also where the saying 'Mad as a hatter' come from, i dunno how true that bit is but i do know they used loads of mercury in hat making and the town's main industry for decades was making hats.

Might also explain why my family is a bit bonkers.

[Edited on 31-8-2016 by NEMO-Chemistry]

NEMO-Chemistry - 31-8-2016 at 08:41

Ok some pics, its been standing a good while so the colour has gone a little bit. The first pic is without shaking and the second is with shaking to get the gas. The third i just did some more litmus but the colour hasnt come out great on the pic.

Seems much redder in real life and past the red of PH1 on the scale of the booklet.

So shows you how little exposure i got! Amazing what the mind does, at least i know for the future

Jordan - 31-8-2016 at 21:39

Not sure why the discussion has shifted so much toward the psychosomatic. My initial exposure was real, not in my head. I know my body and I know reality, I didn't imagine what happened. I do a lot of bodywork, spiritual work, and I meditate regularly. I know how to calm myself down. My symptoms at rest were not due to anxiety.

What I still don't get is how CN gas evolved from the methanol solution, at rest. Any thoughts?

Thanks for the advice about containment and the decomposition of NaCN, that makes me feel a lot better. It's been raining since my first post so it has probably all been converted now.

For what it's worth, this was the experiment:
12g carbon
100g sodium hydroxide
43g cyanuric acid

Placed in a stainless steel vessel and placed in a charcoal fire until the reaction stopped bubbling and turned to a rock. Took about 1-1.5 hours. Chiseled the salts out and put them into methanol. My plan after it dissolved was to filter and then boil the methanol off in a condenser to prevent oxidation of the NaCN.

Might work with urea instead next time because the whole process is contained within an ice bath. If there is a next time. After that initial poisoning I'm scared of the stuff.

NEMO-Chemistry - 1-9-2016 at 03:24

I dont know, but takes 200-300mg orally to kill, so outside in the fresh air you would need alot of exposure.

I know many times its said to do things in a fume hood OR OUTSIDE, but stuff like that you dont just go and do outside without alot of thought.

Take a read of the trials and tribulations of Thorium thread, it shows what can be done with carefully planning and thought.

Everyone makes mistakes and accidents do happen, but dosnt sound like you had much of a plan or put alot of thought into it.

For example...... WHO works with a salt that can release Cyanide and yet dosnt even check their respirator can handle it, let alone if the cartridge is still in date.

I make more fuck ups than most, i am more careless than most (or thought i was). But some things are really basic, like not working with Conc Nitric acid while wearing gloves likely to catch fire on contact with it!

My point is the most basic thing you do when you KNOW you are going to be handling something intentionally nasty, is to at least make sure you have adequate protection.

If your sure you were exposed and you have a medical condition why the fuck didnt you dial an ambulance? What is the point of laying on a bed waiting to die if you know for sure you have poisoned yourself?

Fuck that, i didnt take a chance. Off to hospital i went and TBH i dont care it turned out to be a cold, i wasnt going to take a risk.

I dont understand any of your actions before or after thats all.

Jordan - 2-9-2016 at 20:44

http://www.raesystems.com/sites/default/files/content/resour...

Scroll down to "hazard identification".

HCN is immediately lethal in less than 300ppm.

180ppm for 10 mins is lethal.

You can't compare the gas form to the salt form. The route of administration is different and the gas form is the most rapidly lethal.

NEMO-Chemistry - 3-9-2016 at 01:03

Quote: Originally posted by Jordan

http://www.raesystems.com/sites/default/files/content/resour...

Scroll down to "hazard identification".

HCN is immediately lethal in less than 300ppm.

180ppm for 10 mins is lethal.

You can't compare the gas form to the salt form. The route of administration is different and the gas form is the most rapidly lethal.

Ok maybe look at it this way, whats worse HCN or a cold? You got completely better after 3-5 hours did you not?

I was still feeling rough a week later, therefore you can deduce a cold is far worse than HCN exposure.

.

Seriously i thinks its more a case of you being sensitive to it, besides Darwin tends to catch those who shouldnt be messing with it.

Fyndium - 11-11-2020 at 12:17

I think I got exposed to NO2 too. 24h later, and I still got sore throat and sort of feeling in chest like when having a flu. When the benzyl alcohol oxidation reaction produced large amount of NO2, compared to the article which noted that no NOx gases were detected, I was caught off guard. Even I used inverted funnel NaOH trap, it did very little to stop the fumes. I quickly pulled up the condenser and dumped a liter of cold water, which quenched the reaction, but I had to take the equipment to pour off the contents and wash them with water. Not sure how much I got exposed to. The smell was fancy combination of frangant benzyl alcohol, sweet bitter almond of benzaldehyde and chlorine-like pungency of NO2. I already create a flashback when I smell either of those to the dark brown plume that emitted everywhere.

Should the symptoms that are little considered to be passing, or are there something that should induce a medical check? Have got only sore and reddish throat, a slight feeling in chest like in a flu, but no difficult breathing or headache to any other extent than normal. Prior I would have probably gotten a panic attack and magnified all the symptoms to the point I'd be on ER already, but now I just decided to wait for any real symptoms. If I ever get there, I was pickling stainless steel and got exposed due to splashing it on hot surface.

Lion850 - 11-11-2020 at 12:56

Fyndium my personal experience is that the slightly sore throat after exposure to NOx lasts only a day or two. Happened a few times to me during the last year. The smell always brings a smile and happy memories of my lab when I was in school in the late ‘70s.

Fyndium - 11-11-2020 at 13:10

It's probably the case. The moment I forget about some issue I have, I consider it's healed. I've got a cut in my finger, a pain in knee, sore throat, and so on, and at some point I just realize it doesn't bother me anymore.

A bit mad though I had to drain a good amount of BnOH. I might have been able to save it by immersing the quenched reaction in a ice water, but the place I got the runaway was definitely of not to mess with so my priority number one to ten was to prevent any contamination, period.

NO2 seems to have odor treshold of 0.02ppm, compared to 0.016 for styrene and 3-8ppm for toluene, and those bastards seem to pervade everywhere, especially styrene from sealed metal container. Aluminum tape seal over the sealing cap held the odors somewhat. I've smelt that chlorinous-kind of pungent odor a few times now, and it appears that if there is it on the air, one can probably smell it. The dangerous amounts on the other hand are in the hundreds of ppm for 15min+.

The stuff seems to also stain wet paper towel like no else and it seems to be good method of finding any leaks in lines.

[Edited on 12-11-2020 by Fyndium]

zed - 13-11-2020 at 05:43

I have a lot of high-tech respiratory protection. The first thing your instructions tell you is: Not for use in atmospheres that are immediately hazardous to life.

The Mask is meant to be back-up, not primary protection. A good, well sealed, full face respirator, equipt with an appropriate, freshly opened, high quality gas mask cartridge, offers pretty good protection even from nerve gases....In low concentrations. But, it is transient protection. As soon as possible, leave the area and decontaminate.

If you really, gotta work in a truly hazardous atmosphere, a mask supplied by a remote air supply is required.

Either outside air supply via hose, or an SCBA set-up is required. SCBA is firefighter stuff.

Scavenging Gold? Easily done with HCl and H2O2. Lots of examples on YouTube. Not very dangerous.

Fyndium - 13-11-2020 at 11:17

I never count my ABEK mask as a protection, but a back-up. Maybe sounds stupid, but I reactively hold my breath when handling very toxic stuff which can/could give off vapors. When I had to handle that NO2 mess, I took a deep breath and took determined steps to quench and dump the reaction, put the flask on firm stand, stepped back and then breathed again. I did not have my mask at hand because I was not prepared to such fumes since the instructables just mentioned an inverted funnel, which had pretty much zero effect when the reaction took on. Water, even with conc lye, does not absorb NO2 in such quantities a single trap would be sufficient.

I took care of the issue by fixing my fume hood directly to the overhead stove hood, which pulls stuff up to the skies safely. Now I can just put the hose directly on the suction of my hood to vent all nasties directly to the atmosphere. Prior, I used activated carbon filter.

High risk occupations do indeed use rebreather with air reservoir or external positive pressure air supply via line. HCN is one of such stuff that is instructed to be handled only with such equipment, never with respirator mask only. This may of course differ in an industrial setting where several tons of cyanides can be handled and hence even small fumes can bring concentrations up to immediately fatal levels. Compared to a chemist handling a pound-bottle of KCN very briefly with a spatula, the difference is huge.

zed - 14-11-2020 at 03:33

Inverted funnel? Yes, I've used inverted funnel set-ups. Mostly with HCl gas. But, the funnel is used as a collector, connected to a remote water-driven aspirator pump. Which sucks gases to a distant location, and entrains them in water. This is an active system. Intervening traps may be added

I know that some folks direct exhaust gasses into an inverted funnel, large end, inverted over water, expecting the water to suck up the noxious gases. Never tried it.