Sciencemadness Discussion Board

urgent help carcinogenic nickel and cobalt nitrate

Practicaler - 14-6-2017 at 09:42

Hey everyone!!

I had been storing nickel nitrate , cobalt nitrate , phosphorus and hexamine and potassium ferrocyanide sodium nitrite potassium nitrate and barium nitrate in different ziplock bags completely sealed and all these were put in one ziplock bags for 4 years!!! Now after four years i hopened these bags bare handed without gloves ( first stupid thing i did). Now i noticed something sticky was on my hand which smelled horrible . I went and washed off my hand immediately , then put on my gloves and then continued unboxing everything . Now as soon as i opened first ziplock in which everything was kept i noticed few drops of green nickel nitrate solution was all over every other ziplock bag and my lab is stinking now very very bad smell .

I cleaned every zip lock bag of every chemical with tissue paper , in the process i dont know what gases i have inhaled. Internally everything is still in their zip locks , only nickel nitrate drops was over everything . The red phosphorus became too sticky type and there is some sort of liquid in red phosphorus pouch , a drop from it fell on the floor and it was reacting like as if nitric acid have fallen and was fizzing like when acid fall on concrete



Now my concerns are

What is the liquid in red phosphorus and is there a way to make that red phoaphorus still useful or should i throw it.

The stinky gas i have been exposed is that goin to cause any problem to my health and what could be that gas, ammonia ??

Should i store nickel nitrate and cobalt nitrate or throw them away are they going to cause any harm if they are kept in containers generally the temperature here is 40 degree celsius , am i exposed to nickel nitrate . Is there any possibilty that it can cause cancer or may be dangersous ?? What should i do with nickel or cobalt nitrate?? Are they safe to store??

MeshPL - 14-6-2017 at 11:59

Calm down, there's no reason to panic. Salts have hard time penetrating skin. Wash your hands WELL. That's it. It's not like you swallowed them.

Put all your reagents in jars, those are safer, I think. And more hermetical. You may not need to throw away anything but you must asses the purity based on what you plan to do with those stuff.

You probably can smell phosphine. PH3 It is dangerous and toxic. It comes from phosphorus which has disproportionated in water into phosphine and phosphoric acids which react with carbonates in concrete. You should ventillate your lab well, and potentially clean the phosphorus. I don't know how, maybe wash it with ethanol/acetone after boiling it in water/dilute NaOH? Do this in a fumehood though or outside with good ventillation. And wait till others confirm that it is OK. Store phosphorus in something more hermetical for sure. Now, if you plan to use it for pyrotechnical purposes, you must be aware that it will be contaminated with impurities greatly increasing sensitivity of any pyrotechnical mixtures with it.

Also, how humid is the place where you store theese chemicals? Your ziplock must be not hermetical as they let a lot of humidity pass through and nickel nitrate out.

tsathoggua1 - 14-6-2017 at 12:56

Boiling phosphorus in NaOH could result in the production of phosphine, that sounds like a potentially dangerous suggestion Mesh.

zed - 14-6-2017 at 16:33

Zip locks might be fairly porous, and the seal via the Zips...is nothing special.

Gasses could pass through the plastic itself, under some conditions. Albeit slowly.

Had some buddies that used to send up lit-fused, trash-bags full of hydrogen, for fire displays in the sky.

Consensus.......send it up NOW. The hydrogen diffuses out of the bag, fairly quickly.

As for Nickel toxicity. It depends on how much exposure, and how. You will remember that U.S. Nickels used to be made out of Nickel, and Canadian Nickels still might be. No problem.

On the other hand, my art-glass, glassblower friend, assures me that guys who inhale a lot of Nickel vapor, generated during the production Art glass, soon become drooling idiots. Might or might not be true.

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~toxmetal/toxic-metals/more-metals/...



[Edited on 15-6-2017 by zed]

Melgar - 14-6-2017 at 16:48

I know on Wikipedia, half the nickel salt pages say "nickel causes cancer", but that's a bit disingenuous. Cigarettes every day will give you cancer too. But a single cigarette won't. Same thing with nickel. Also, you need to inhale water-soluble nickel salts for it to give you cancer.

MeshPL - 14-6-2017 at 21:15
Quote:

Boiling phosphorus in NaOH could result in the production of phosphine, that sounds like a potentially dangerous suggestion Mesh.


I know but that's what Brauer's Preparative Inorganic Chemistry recommends for purification of phosphorus... Perhaps I just should have redirected him to the book itself. My bad, sorry.

That's why I said:
Quote:

Do this in a fumehood though or outside with good ventillation. And wait till others confirm that it is OK.


So we agree it is NOT OK.

Now, Practcaler needs a way to purify his phosphorus, because storing this dump mass he has sounds like a recipe for more phosphine. Any ideas?




[Edited on 15-6-2017 by MeshPL]

woelen - 14-6-2017 at 23:56

Using ziplock bags for permanent storage is not smart at all. They are somewhat porous and the seal is not very good.

You do not have to worry about your health. You did not inhale any nickel or cobalt. The bad smell most likely is from the phosphorus and not from the nickel or cobalt salts.

You can clean your phosphorus safely by putting it all in a dilute solution of NaOH (1 to 2% of NaOH). White P produces phosphine with this (albeit very slowly), red P does not react with this. Your red P is contaminated with phosphoric and/or phosphorous acid. This is washed out with the NaOH and next, you put the slurry under water, rinsing out remaining sodium salts. Finally, allow the phosphorus to dry in a dust-free warm place (very nice would be an oven, which can be put to a low temperature like 70C or 80C, otherwise just allow to dry in air). Once the red P is dry put it in a tightly sealed container. Stored that way, it remains good indefinitely.

Practicaler - 15-6-2017 at 02:43

Quote: Originally posted by woelen  
Using ziplock bags for permanent storage is not smart at all. They are somewhat porous and the seal is not very good.

You do not have to worry about your health. You did not inhale any nickel or cobalt. The bad smell most likely is from the phosphorus and not from the nickel or cobalt salts.

You can clean your phosphorus safely by putting it all in a dilute solution of NaOH (1 to 2% of NaOH). White P produces phosphine with this (albeit very slowly), red P does not react with this. Your red P is contaminated with phosphoric and/or phosphorous acid. This is washed out with the NaOH and next, you put the slurry under water, rinsing out remaining sodium salts. Finally, allow the phosphorus to dry in a dust-free warm place (very nice would be an oven, which can be put to a low temperature like 70C or 80C, otherwise just allow to dry in air). Once the red P is dry put it in a tightly sealed container. Stored that way, it remains good indefinitely.



Thaks sir ! Felt really good after reading this . Now definately i m goin to clean my phosphorus!!