I looked up the MSDS on hydrazine...

[EnderKid2]

It's very scary.

What other scary chemicals do you know about?

[kerbiloid]

Water. It killed millions of times more people than hydrazine.

[Elrond Cupboard]

Dinitrogen tetroxide is fun, sort of goes with hydrazine too,

2 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Water. It killed millions of times more people than hydrazine.

Doesn't cause horrible burns if I get it on my skin, though.

Edited June 6, 2016 by Elrond Cupboard

[kerbiloid]

9 minutes ago, Elrond Cupboard said:

Doesn't cause horrible burns if I get it on my skin, though.

Even if drop a hot kettle?

[Elrond Cupboard]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Even if drop a hot kettle?

If it's hot enough (or cold enough) anything will be an issue. Not really comparable.

[Bill Phil]

Sodium. It burns* water. 

*steals the oxygen, then the hydrogen burns with atmospheric oxygen

[Kerbart]

From what I understood from Ignition! is that hydrazine is considered relative benign compared to the additives that are usually used and that make it really nasty.

[Robotengineer]

Dimethylmercury. 

[TheSaint]

Dioxygen Difluoride

[cantab]

Dimethylmercury is one of the most legitimately terrifying compounds I know of. The combination of passing straight through so-called protective equipment like it's nothing, of being incredibly toxic, and of that toxicity having an exceptionally delayed action, all stacks up to make for an evil, evil chemical.

[Servo]

John Drury Clark on Chlorine Trifluoride:

"It is, of course, extremely toxic, but that's the least of the problem. It is hypergolic with every known fuel, and so rapidly hypergolic that no ignition delay has ever been measured. It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers, not to mention asbestos, sand, and water — with which it reacts explosively. It can be kept in some of the ordinary structural metals — steel, copper, aluminum, etc. — because of the formation of a thin film of insoluble metal fluoride which protects the bulk of the metal, just as the invisible coat of oxide on aluminum keeps it from burning up in the atmosphere. If, however, this coat is melted or scrubbed off, and has no chance to reform, the operator is confronted with the problem of coping with a metal-fluorine fire. For dealing with this situation, I have always recommended a good pair of running shoes."

"...extreme corrosivity against oxide-containing materials often thought as incombustible. "

"...900 kg of chlorine trifluoride burned through 30 cm of concrete and 90 cm of gravel beneath."

" ignite sand, asbestos, and other highly fire-retardant materials. "

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorine_trifluoride

[vger]

6 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Even if drop a hot kettle?

For that, you need something that burns you, before you can make water capable of burning you.

[GDJ]

From personal experience:

Benzene (99%) - Causes instant nervous destruction (organ failure, brain damage as well as a whack of other cancerous diseases) upon short term contact and death can result in a few minutes exposure.
Hydrogen Peroxide (90%) - liquifies and ignites all organic matter in seconds in this concentration. If you see a leak, RUN IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION AS FAST AS YOU CAN.
Cesium - Variations of this is used for drilling exploration of some forms. More radioactive versions are not in public use. 
Raw Lithium - Don't take it out of it's protective gel. VERY reactive. Known to react in humid atmosphere. 
Hydrogen Sulphide gas - You breathe in this god awful smelling stuff, it destroys the nerves that gives you the sense of smell in a couple of breathes. In a minute or two you pass out, and you're dead in 3.
Nitrogen (100% concentration, enclosed space) - One breath, you go unconscious. If you're not pulled out in 3 minutes, you're dead.

Edited June 7, 2016 by GDJ

[qeveren]

1 hour ago, GDJ said:

From personal experience:

Raw Lithium - Don't take it out of it's protective gel. VERY reactive. Known to react in humid atmosphere.

Lithium's pretty tame, as far as alkali metals go; even sodium can be personable when it's in the right mood (and not wet).

 

Probably the most dangerous thing I've ever worked with was lab-grade hydrofluoric acid, which is pretty anticlimactic provided you take basic safety precautions.  The most dangerous thing I've ever worked near was probably nickel tetracarbonyl, which was introduced to me as follows:  "About a kilometer that way is the nickel carbonyl plant, which has a very loud warning siren.  If you ever hear that siren go off, don't bother running: it's already too late."

 

 

[p1t1o]

Omg, a thread about an MSDS. MSDSs are my life, its basically the meat+two veg of my profession at the moment. I almost NEVER get to talk about SDSs!

13 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Water. It killed millions of times more people than hydrazine.

During the course of my job in regulatory affairs, I have once been obliged to write an MSDS for water.

MSDSs are compiled from set phrases, each phrase having set criteria for when it is applied. 

There are a lot of different phrases, as you can imagine there are a lot of different properties and warnings etc.

There are however a bunch of phrases which are used most often, standard phrases if you like.

So, the SDS for water ended up (as generated in compliance with EU regulation EC No. 1272/2008 & EC No. 1907/2006) containing such interesting and useful advice as these:

 

On contact with skin, flush with copious amounts of water.

If swallowed, wash mouth with plenty of water.

Do not induce vomiting.

After inhalation, no special measures required.

After eye contact, rinse opened eye for several minutes under running water.

Suitable extinguishing agents: CO2, powder or water spray. Fight large fires with water spray.

Odour: characteristic.

Product does not present an explosion hazard.

 

Yes, that was all from a legitimate, regulatorily compliant document that we are sometimes legally obliged to provide, or at least have if challenged.

A butt-covering measure to be sure, and a rare emergence of the ridiculous from the rules set out in the regs. Its just a weird thing that happens in the industry sometimes.

 

I have also worked in a plant located in a large chemical industrial zone. Occasionally, if there was a leak or spill, or usually just a drill, the toxic alarm would go off, an air-raid-like siren that could be heard site-wide, and actually almost across the whole city. Anyhoo, when it went off, it wasn't that big of a deal, most of the buildings had chemical-grade sealable windows, so we'd just shut any open ones and keep working. If you happen to be outside you just head to the nearest building and wait there.

No such process at the elementary school across the road though, they just kept on playin' outside... Luckily there was never a serious leak anywhere near our part of the site, just drills and minor spills, but still...

Ooh also, this was just about a hundred yard away from where they grew Quorn^TM in big vats.

 

I think the nastiest chemicals I have worked on were several classes of shellfish toxin. The scary thing about these is that they could be found in almost any shellfish, and some of them are not destroyed by heat...

We all know about Diarrhetic shellfish poisoning, does what it says on the tins. But there is also Neurotoxic, Amnesic and Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning.

NSP (Neuroxic) is about as serious as Diarrhetic, causing nausea and vomiting, occasional slurred speech. No reported fatalities.

ASP (Amnesic) can cause permanent loss of short-term memory, brain damage and death, the toxin is heat resistant and has an LD50 of 3.6mg/kg in mice, causes kidney damage at 0.036mg/kg.

PSP (Paralytic) is caused by several classes of toxin, often found in higher concentrations after algal blooms. Ld50 is in the 1-10microgram/kg bodymass range. 0.5milligrams is usually fatal to an average human, by oral route. Toxins are not destroyed by cooking. Causes "flaccid paralysis", death by respiratory failure, you are awake as this happens. (For comparison, the venom of the black mamba has an (injected - it is destroyed in the stomach) LD50 of ~250-500micrograms/kg).

 

Prawn cocktail anyone?

 

Can you tell I don't get to talk about my job much?

Edited June 7, 2016 by p1t1o

[kBob]

Well I'm afraid of H2O poisoning what a terrible way to die (so don't drink too much, or maybe not at all ).

But really Pb gets me, hate to think of what it did to my brain as a child living next to a busy highway in the 60's.

[radonek]

10 hours ago, Servo said:

John Drury Clark on Chlorine Trifluoride…

Yeah, Ignition is some good reading. More current stuff is things I wont work with.
 

[QuesoExplosivo]

Once you've worked with diazomethane (or even TMS-diazomethane), hydrazine seems tame.

[DDE]

Somebody appears to have investigated a combination of fluorine, lithium and hydrogen as a working tripropellant with a record-setting Isp of 542 sec. Just to keep it on rockets.

And yes, the Soviets actually had a functioning upper-stage ammonia-fluorine engine.