evil_lurker
National Hazard
Posts: 767
Registered: 12-3-2005
Location: United States of Elbonia
Member Is Offline
Mood: On the wagon again.
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Apartment lab bust in CA...
What the hell is it with people wanting to put labs in their apartments?
Here we go again...
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_11070116?nclic...
Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in
beer.
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Magpie
lab constructor
Posts: 5939
Registered: 1-11-2003
Location: USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Chemistry: the subtle science.
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Evil I couldn't get anything to come up from your link. I shortened it to the following, which did bring up the article:
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_11070116?
I agree that having a lab in or adjacent to your living quarters requires due diligence. But when an appartment is your living quarters, I would
necessarily restrict the scope of my in house experimentation and chemical storage to vinegar, baking soda, and the like.
I can see where this is a real problem for many young experimenters, who are likely students living in dorms or apartments. This also includes young
working people who just doen't yet have the wherewithal to own their own homes or property.
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Sauron
International Hazard
Posts: 5351
Registered: 22-12-2006
Location: Barad-Dur, Mordor
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Mood: metastable
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It's even more of a REAL PROBLEM when due diligence does not suffice and innocent people are jeopardized, injured, killed, and suffer property loss,
not to mention the loss to the property owner who very likely forbade storage of flammables in the lease. This is generally required by insurors.
Siting a lab this way is rresponsbible, negligent, and when it goes wrong, destructive to our hobby. If avoiding this litany of woe requires
inconveniencing young hobbyists, so be it. They will bloody well be more inconvenienced when they have to pay, civilly and perhaps criminally, for the
havoc they wreak. That is if they are not themselves killed outright.
STUPID!
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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chemrox
International Hazard
Posts: 2961
Registered: 18-1-2007
Location: UTM
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Mood: LaGrangian
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We used to do a lot of property transfer due dilligence investigations and meth labs were a significant concern for awhile. This was especially a
concern in the lead acetate method days. We have a huge file on all the methods that can be used to make the shit. The main hazard in the
"push/pull" method is system overload that can lead to an explosion. The dissolving metal method has been the culprit in several explosions that
were large enough to destroy a motel or two. Seems ammonia explosions are a big hazard in that process.
However this story is about the panic and scare caused by overzealousness. As I read the story the apratment was rented by a "scientist" who had some
chemicals there. There wasn't a lab and the whole thing was a tempest in a teapot. 68 units were evacuated because of an inert device one fireman
suspected of being a bomb. These guys have been trained to see bombs and meth labs under their beds.
[Edited on 26-11-2008 by chemrox]
"When you let the dumbasses vote you end up with populism followed by autocracy and getting back is a bitch." Plato (sort of)
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kclo4
National Hazard
Posts: 916
Registered: 11-12-2004
Location:
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Mood: No Mood
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Ammonia explosions?
How does that happen?
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JohnWW
International Hazard
Posts: 2849
Registered: 27-7-2004
Location: New Zealand
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Mood: No Mood
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| Quote: | | Originally posted by kclo4Ammonia explosions?How does that happen? |
Probably by mixing ammonia (as
in ammonia cleaning mixtures) with sodium hypochlorite bleach. Both are sold in supermarkets. The result would be chloramines, and ultimately nitrogen
trichloride which is a dangerously unstable explosive.
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Ozone
International Hazard
Posts: 1269
Registered: 28-7-2005
Location: Good Olde USA
Member Is Offline
Mood: Integrated
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Ammonia explosions?
How does that happen?
The ammonia is served as an anyhydrous liquid. It must be transferred, read. condensed into the reaction vessel. This is usually jacketted or immersed
in a dry ice /slush bath. Directing the liquid into a sealed (tentatively to avoid escape of teh extremely noxious vapor) apparatus results in
immediate oiling of the NH3 and rapid pressurization of the apparatus.
See PV=nRT and then consider a closed system.
IN the best case, a joint pops open and you get gassed out of whatever stupid location you had chosen to perform this stupid operation.
Worst case, the apparatus explodes..and you get gassed. The gassing is probably what clears out the adjacent complex and notifies (perhaps indirectly)
the authorities.
Gobble Gobble,
O3
-Anyone who never made a mistake never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein
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