Chemistry, FOOF, WHAT 

So you might be familar with the horrible, horrible chemical FOOF. That's it's chemical structure not a nickname.

If you're not I highly recommend reading this, it's hilarious. science.org/content/blog-post/

Anyway! I discovered today that there is actually a use for this chemical that burns pretty much everything including itself and explodes if you look at it funny.

You react it it with radioactive waste.
"..Asprey discovered that FOOF could recover elements like plutonium and uranium from nuclear fuel waste, in which the radioactive elements exist as oxides. FOOF does this by transforming them to hexafluorides at room temperature. The hexafluorides can then be fed back into the nuclear fuel cycle..."

edu.rsc.org/magnificent-molecu

I'll be over there. Waaaay over there.

Chemistry, FOOF, WHAT 

@Doephin . . .

. . .

They somehow made FOOF MORE scary.

That's /impressive/.

re: Chemistry, FOOF, WHAT 

@Phorm The scientist working on this was a Manhattan Project alumnus apparently, so used to working with Very Dubious Materials. And granted any time your end result is UF6 things are going to be Spicy.

But even still aaaaaaaarg. No.

re: Chemistry, FOOF, WHAT 

@Phorm Also note the "at room temperature" part. Considering most experiments with FOOF were done at like -180 and it STILL EXPLODED..

Sign in to participate in the conversation
Awoo Space

Awoo.space is a Mastodon instance where members can rely on a team of moderators to help resolve conflict, and limits federation with other instances using a specific access list to minimize abuse.

While mature content is allowed here, we strongly believe in being able to choose to engage with content on your own terms, so please make sure to put mature and potentially sensitive content behind the CW feature with enough description that people know what it's about.

Before signing up, please read our community guidelines. While it's a very broad swath of topics it covers, please do your best! We believe that as long as you're putting forth genuine effort to limit harm you might cause – even if you haven't read the document – you'll be okay!