from Hacker News

Things I Won't Work With: Peroxide Peroxides

by joe_bleau on 10/10/14, 11:00 PM with 53 comments

• by ChuckMcM on 10/11/14, 4:14 AM

  I was one of those kids that read that the original Bell jetpack used Hydrogen Peroxide with a silver catalyst for "fuel". I tried it on the peroxide I bought from the drug store and it didn't work. So I figured "oh it just needs to be more concentrated." My friend and I built a pretty crude still and about 10 gallons of 5% hydrogen peroxide. I don't know what the concentration was when we finished, but I do remember trying to pour some into a steel pipe which was to be our "tank" for our test rocket. To say that I was startled by the pipe being yanked out of my hand by the steam exploding out of its end would be an understatement :-) We spent the rest of the afternoon "blowing up" ant hills in the desert by pouring like a quarter up of our distillate on to them.

• by mikeyouse on 10/11/14, 2:01 AM

  I spent some time at the remaining facility in the country making the really interesting rocket fuel. The most fascinating thing to me (aside from the multiple armed security checkpoints required to visit the food lab we were visiting) was the setup of the buildings. Nearly all of them were ~500yds apart, set in between massive ~50ft tall, ~100ft wide earthen berms. The really interesting buildings had escape slides coming from the second floor. Each building at the roadside had the familiar NFPA diamond for response crews. I've never seen so many "4"s on that diamond in my life.

• by chrisbennet on 10/11/14, 1:51 PM

  How to Blow Up Your Kitchen With Hydrogen Peroxide.

  A few years ago, upon returning home after work, my my wife told me that her mother had blown blown up her kitchen but that she was OK. (My late mother-in-law was a wonderful person BTW.)

  I can be prone to inattention when my wife speaks to me but this, this got my attention. :-)

  My mother in law was an antique dealer. To restore/bleach old china, she would put some (hair dresser grade) hydrogen peroxide in in/on the china in question and let it warm in the oven.

  One day she did this, but for some reason, this time she used her kitchen microwave instead of the oven. While it was warming she stepped out of her kitchen (to put something in the recycle I think) and luckily escaped the blast that blew out her kitchen window and sent her microwave into the Great Beyond.

  When the fire department came she, I guess, feigned ignorance of what could have caused it. She was after all, a sweet old lady.

  After my wife finished telling me the story, I mentioned something to the effect that "You realize they used hydrogen peroxide in the German V2 rockets?"

  A picture of the remains of the destroyed microwave was displayed at her funeral.

  R.I.P. ma

• by idlewords on 10/10/14, 11:49 PM

  This is a wonderful series that (rightfully) gets posted here a lot. I'd like to point out that the author's blog is also worth digging into for interesting and insightful posts about the modern pharmaceutical industry. For example: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/03/08/erooms_law.p... (how knowing more has actually made us worse at finding effective drugs).

• by IgorPartola on 10/11/14, 1:51 AM

  I came here to say that fluorine is even scarier in some ways. Sure enough he's covered it: http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2008/02/26/sand_wont_sa.... I really wish he was my chem professor back in school.

  Speaking of Oxygen though, I once attended a lecture/Q&A by the Myth Busters. It was pretty cool, and during the Q&A portion someone asked "Is there a myth you started, and then backed out?". They said that they won't do anything with liquid oxygen. They had a few myths about it, did some research, and realized that it can set pavement on fire. They then decided not to proceed.

• by avmich on 10/11/14, 7:02 PM

  I wonder why the author is so caustic in regard to hydrogen peroxide.

  Here - http://yarchive.net/space/rocket/fuels/peroxide.html - second message mentions Clark's "Ignition!" facts, and in first Henry Spencer states:

  While there are some storage headaches -- the stuff decomposes slowly no matter what you do, so you must provide for tank venting -- otherwise peroxide is much easier and safer to handle. Its bad reputation is half outright myth and half the result of 1940s experience with seriously impure peroxide. To quote a friend, a rocket-propulsion professional, who investigated the matter as part of a study some years ago:

  "As far as we could find out, the stories about problems with peroxide were just that, stories... Peroxide, now, seems to only very rarely do anything exciting, at all. And, even then, it seems to never do many of the things attributed to it in the stories."

  Of course hydrogen peroxide can be dangerous - relatively recent explosion in Sweden (peroxidepropulsion.com) reminds us about that. At the same time significant volumes of it with more than 70% concentration are routinely used - so a chemist can calibrate the feeling.

• by bsaul on 10/11/14, 2:56 PM

  I realize i barely know anything in chemistry. I have zero practical knowledge and would be almost incapable of performing any kind of chemistry exercise anymore ( yet i do have a scientific background).

  Anyone here could recommend a book or a serie of books to get myself into shape on that subject ?

• by revelation on 10/11/14, 1:03 AM

  It is a bit frustrating to read this when you lack the necessary intuition. Why is a bond strong or weak, what do these atoms want to bond with and how is this all related to stuff blowing up?

• by refurb on 10/11/14, 12:52 AM

  I'm always amazed at the hazardous chemistry that some labs do! They are obviously taking the necessary precautions, but I'm not sure I'd have the guts to do it.

  I worked as a chemist for 7 years and witnessed 4 serious accidents, 3 of the 4 due to oxidizing agents (2 of them were peroxides). Some of the folks have scars to this day because of it.

• by danieltillett on 10/10/14, 11:57 PM

  Derek’s blog is one of the best blog’s I have read. If you want to learn about the pharmaceutical industry and how the process of drug discovery really works (or doesn’t work) then I recommend it highly.

  On topic I wouldn’t want to work with peroxide peroxides either :) Derek often has write up about what some of the really crazy organic chemists who work on unstable compounds do - truly eye opening for someone with a biology background like me.