Explosion!

Random blog filler aka old journal entry

Today, I am going to be talking to you about explosions. I will start by introducing the general concepts of explosion, comment briefly on why they happen and focus the rest of my talk on why they shouldn't happen (at least not to me)...

Think loud boooommmmm. Think of everyone close by gasping. Think of that weird feeling you get when you know that that noise must be coming from your hood and no one else's. After all, who else in that module has anything explosive?

Or another scenario: You have the beaker tipped over the flask, and you are just pouring, and then you think OH NO! But in this case, you hand is swifter than your mind. Note that this is not normally the case.

Yet another scenario: Of course not! That never really happens. I mean, who are they kidding? Or at the very least, how big of a fire can a little drop (or piece, or crystal...) cause? You know the writers of general chem. books like to exaggerate.

OK, now let me speak from experience. First: if you think that booom is from your hood, you are probably wrong. It is really from mine. Second: Pirahna and acetone (anything organic actually) is a really bad idea. And finally, Butyl lithium (and BBr₃, and a whole host of others), will really catch fire when exposed to air (think spill) and a paper towel is not what you want to wipe that spill with, no matter how close they lie and how tempting they look!

So how do explosions happen? Let me list a few: 1. Reactions in closed tubes. My problem here is that it worked great the first time. So why not the second time? All the grease I am still having to clean up, after so many months tell me that I obviously did something wrong. Moral of story: If the reaction can be run in an open system, go for that.

2. Some things just don't like each other. Just like some girls just don't like guys or vice versa (but I deviate here). Spontaneous reactions really do exist. Every so often, ΔH and ΔS are just right and even the temperature too. Did I mention that explosions are exothermic reactions? Ok, so it is obvious...

3. Curiosity can literally kill the cat. I mean it. Really, if all the text books say it is a bad thing, it probably is...