Hydrofluoric acidic (HF) is wicked stuff. I've seen pictures of a guy who didn't realise he had a hole in his glove while handling the stuff. Nasty.
When I was working at Mallinckrodt, I visited their St. Louis plant. It's located in downtown St. Louis, in the middle of a residential area, and does some really oddball chemical engineering. One of the main product lines are hexafluoride derivatives for the pharmaceutical industry which in turn derive from the expertise they developed doing molecular distillation of uranium hexafluoride for the Manhattan project. They regularly truck in 20t loads of HF through the nearby residential streets.
The plant is also the world's biggest legal producer of heroin and cocaine. They bring the raw material in in heavily armed convoys.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-09-30 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-09-30 07:25 pm (UTC)I once had to use flouric (?) acid, one of the nastiest chemicals known to man. That was a pretty unpleasant morning, too.
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Date: 2006-09-30 08:24 pm (UTC)When I was working at Mallinckrodt, I visited their St. Louis plant. It's located in downtown St. Louis, in the middle of a residential area, and does some really oddball chemical engineering. One of the main product lines are hexafluoride derivatives for the pharmaceutical industry which in turn derive from the expertise they developed doing molecular distillation of uranium hexafluoride for the Manhattan project. They regularly truck in 20t loads of HF through the nearby residential streets.
The plant is also the world's biggest legal producer of heroin and cocaine. They bring the raw material in in heavily armed convoys.
That Magda Goebbels moment...
Date: 2006-09-30 08:04 pm (UTC)