DeepBluePotato
Harmless
Posts: 6
Registered: 8-8-2015
Location: Magnesium
Member Is Offline
Mood: Plutonic
|
|
How I Got My First Chemical Burn from Rain
So here's the story, see if you come to the same conclusion I did.
I like to produce tech art, basically using modern electronic scrap to idealize physical and chemical principles in a attractive, metaphorical manner.
For instance, the item pictured is my "Philosopher's Stone", which represents to me the understanding of electrochemistry with its arrangement of
interlocking conductors, insulators, and oxidation states.
It consists primarily of hard drive parts:
Copper wire from HDD arm (is this likely to be annealed copper, or an alloy?).
Poorly-magnetizable shiny metal disc (presumably chromium steel).
A hematite bead with wire running through it.
A short length of headphone earbud cable.
The sequence of events begins as I leave my evening class and decide to run through the rain, up the stone stairs, quite vigorously. I stop at the
top, pull out my phone, and absentmindedly roll the Philosopher's Stone in my right hand after pulling it out of my pocket. My hands are wet with rain
and sweat.
When I open my soda bottle to rehydrate, I feel a piece of my right index finger slough off as I turn the cap. Bloodstains are visible, first noticed
on the bottle and then on the Stone itself -- on the chromium piece, specifically.
My hypothesis is that the Stone is functioning as a triboelectric generator, and was charged by my furtive attempts to avoid getting drenched. Then,
when I touched it to my sweaty, rainwater-tainted finger, the acidic rainwater was catalytically reduced into nitric acid.
I can't seem to find any other explanation for what occurred. I most definitely did not have any trace caustics or anything on my hands. It's also
possible that the rainwater was itself tainted, perhaps due to running off the edge of the walkway's poured concrete roof. This could easily gather
nitrogenous substances like bird feces, right?
Burn:
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermind, you're clearly busy." as she shuts the door, I go back to beating it. HIGH SCORE
|
|
|
Little_Ghost_again
National Hazard
Posts: 985
Registered: 16-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: Baffled
|
|
Nah its a blister from typing bollox all day 
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
|
|
|
violet sin
International Hazard
Posts: 1480
Registered: 2-9-2012
Location: Daydreaming of uraninite...
Member Is Offline
Mood: Good
|
|
my guess is you blistered your finger trying to weave the wires through the holes, tying knots, wrestling the pieces out of their original homes- and
didn't notice it immediately. has happened to me many a times. after a while, the nearly invisible pocket will swell with fluid. if there is
external water to help, it does. if your hands were cold from your brisk walk in the rain you might not have noticed it getting irritated. finally
when opening the hydration of choice( a soda? ) the skin gave way and you saw blood. your hands don't look to be overly callused, so I don't think it
would be all to hard to form a small blister.
if you don't want to take my word for it. hang the "philosophers stone" over some test object, spray it wet a bit and let that fall on the test
surface. is there corrosion? probably not
|
|
|
Little_Ghost_again
National Hazard
Posts: 985
Registered: 16-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: Baffled
|
|
Ok so I got the blister bit right anyway
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
|
|
|
Sulaiman
International Hazard
Posts: 3696
Registered: 8-2-2015
Location: 3rd rock from the sun
Member Is Offline
|
|
more likely that some soggy sweaty epidermis stuck to the bottle top better than to the dermis,
or something similar.
I can't imagine the composition of your artwork would cause more than mechanical damage.
I am slightly more artistic than a rhinocerous,
but I like the idea of encapsulating a concept in a piece of artwork,
D'oh ...edited 'dermis' from'epidermis'
[Edited on 10-9-2015 by Sulaiman]
|
|
|
violet sin
International Hazard
Posts: 1480
Registered: 2-9-2012
Location: Daydreaming of uraninite...
Member Is Offline
Mood: Good
|
|
if only it was that easy to make nitric acid with rain water  I have a dozen or
more hard drives that could be executed immediately for their magnets alone...
LGA think we were typing at the same time. also your post count 653, mine 655( now) pretty darn close numbers
|
|
|
DeepBluePotato
Harmless
Posts: 6
Registered: 8-8-2015
Location: Magnesium
Member Is Offline
Mood: Plutonic
|
|
Okay, thanks for the feedback. I didn't think this was incredibly likely, and I have indeed thought of another possibility. I should clarify as well
that I used my left hand to twist the cap and the right to anchor the bottle counter to the rotation; this means the skin slipped off on the soft
plastic, not the ridged, stiffer cap.
I may have actually dehydrated it with an isoP/acetone/MgSO4 mix that I was using to clean my smoking pipe. Thanks for the pushback, I thought my
conclusion was a little far-fetched.
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermind, you're clearly busy." as she shuts the door, I go back to beating it. HIGH SCORE
|
|
|
Little_Ghost_again
National Hazard
Posts: 985
Registered: 16-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: Baffled
|
|
Quote: Originally posted by violet sin  | if only it was that easy to make nitric acid with rain water I have a dozen or
more hard drives that could be executed immediately for their magnets alone...
LGA think we were typing at the same time. also your post count 653, mine 655( now) pretty darn close numbers |
LOl 654 posts and not one worth reading so I do hold a kind of record , if
Nitric acid was that easy I would have aga's competition in the bag! But just incase............ I am taking a HDD apart as we speak, any further
intel on the dehydration fluid used?
Rain temperature would be good and average humidity.
Also how many turns of wire? Aga get that cheaque ready just in case
[Edited on 10-9-2015 by Little_Ghost_again]
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
|
|
|
Dan Vizine
National Hazard
Posts: 628
Registered: 4-4-2014
Location: Tonawanda, New York
Member Is Offline
Mood: High Resistance
|
|
Also, HNO3 burns are yellow. Happens very quickly (the color, not the tissue damage).
"All Your Children Are Poor Unfortunate Victims of Lies You Believe, a Plague Upon Your Ignorance that Keeps the Youth from the Truth They
Deserve"...F. Zappa
|
|
|
aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
The broken blister is clearly a mechanically caused injury, not chemical, nor fresh.
Right index finger, where the trigger would be on your Xbox remote joystick ...
Truth will aways out.
Edit:
There would have been no blood, just clear fluid.
[Edited on 10-9-2015 by aga]
|
|
|
DeepBluePotato
Harmless
Posts: 6
Registered: 8-8-2015
Location: Magnesium
Member Is Offline
Mood: Plutonic
|
|
Bottom line: GLOVES, MOTHAFUKKAS.
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermind, you're clearly busy." as she shuts the door, I go back to beating it. HIGH SCORE
|
|
|
aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
It's just attention seeking bullshit.
Wrong forum dude.
Well, depends on who's on what forum i guess.
Edit:
Did you Bite the blister or rip it with some tool ?
Looks kinda ragged, like it was bitten.
[Edited on 10-9-2015 by aga]
|
|
|
Little_Ghost_again
National Hazard
Posts: 985
Registered: 16-9-2014
Member Is Offline
Mood: Baffled
|
|
bahhhh now I gotta reassemble my HDD
Dont ask me, I only know enough to be dangerous
|
|
|
Boffis
International Hazard
Posts: 1867
Registered: 1-5-2011
Member Is Offline
Mood: No Mood
|
|
Nitric acid burns are always yellow to start with and from a single drop of nitric acid a hard yellow crust forms which eventually peels away leaving
a raw red patch. The type of wound illustrated above does not look like a nitric acid burn.
|
|
|
DeepBluePotato
Harmless
Posts: 6
Registered: 8-8-2015
Location: Magnesium
Member Is Offline
Mood: Plutonic
|
|
| Quote: Originally posted by aga | It's just attention seeking bullshit.
Wrong forum dude.
Well, depends on who's on what forum i guess.
Edit:
Did you Bite the blister or rip it with some tool ?
Looks kinda ragged, like it was bitten.
[Edited on 10-9-2015 by aga] |
Yeah urrite after it peeled over 60% off
Quoth the Raven, "Nevermind, you're clearly busy." as she shuts the door, I go back to beating it. HIGH SCORE
|
|
|
zed
International Hazard
Posts: 2283
Registered: 6-9-2008
Location: Great State of Jefferson, City of Portland
Member Is Offline
Mood: Semi-repentant Sith Lord
|
|
Such negativity. Where is your scientific curiosity?
No one thought to ask about a blood sugar test. Or, the petitioners location.
As you will recall, a single bucket of rainwater, caused a resident of OZ, to completely dissolve.
Yup. Turned out the "WW of the West", had a very high brown sugar content. When Dorothy dumped a bucket of water on her, she was gone, gone gone.
|
|
|
aga
Forum Drunkard
Posts: 7030
Registered: 25-3-2014
Member Is Offline
|
|
I'm Melting ! Melting ! Aaaaagh !
i said the same with the phenol burn.
Between the two, only the Wicked Witch was right.
|
|
|
![[*]](images/xpblue/default_icon.gif){kind=icon}
