The word “chemical” conjures up a lot of images of science labs and dangerous compounds, but everything has a chemical structure, from corn syrup (C6H14O7) to good old water, which we all know as H2O. So a chemical compound can take literally any form, some of which are harmless, some of which are beneficial, and some of which are so incredibly dangerous that you should never be in the same room with them. Let’s take a look at 10 of them.
10. Dangerously reactive chlorine trifluoride
Most of us will never encounter chlorine trifluoride in the wild, and that's a good thing, because it's an absolutely terrifying substance. It's so reactive that when people write about it, they use words like "absurd" and "madness," and these are people of science, so you know something remarkable is going to happen to this compound when it's released.
This a high-energy fluorinating agent that usually stored as a liquefied gas. It is incredibly corrosive and toxic and can cause almost anything in the world to burn. Not just the usual things you would think of as flammable, but things like cement and glass , which do not burn under normal circumstances. It can even burn asbestos. Once it burns, it is almost impossible to put it out until it burns itself out. Water causes it to explode and burn even more, so that is not an option. The gases it produces are toxic and also highly corrosive to nearby metals. Its byproducts are hydrofluoric and hydrochloric acids.
When it was discovered, it was quickly put to military use. Bombs and flamethrowers were obvious choices, and because it was so easy to make, supplies could be plentiful. However, only about 30 tons were made because, despite being cheap, simple, and effective, it was too unstable and dangerous to use. You can only store it safely in a container treated with gaseous fluorine , but if you hit him, he would still probably explode. He reacts so quickly to literally everything that scientists have not even been able to measure his reaction time.
In the 1950s, a ton of chlorine trifluoride spilled on a warehouse floor. It burned through a foot of concrete and another three feet of gravel, all the while releasing acidic vapor.
9. The Incredibly Explosive Azidoazide Azide
Over the years, science has developed a lot of things that can explode, including popular substances like TNT and C4. But the reason they're so popular is that, relatively speaking, they're pretty stable and easy to use. And if you're thinking that things like TNT aren't really that stable, we said "relatively." Compared to azidoazide, almost everything is relatively stable.
The formula for azidoazide azide is C2N14, which you'll notice has a lot of nitrogen in it. That's one of the reasons it's probably the most explosive compound in the world. Why the word "maybe"? Because to know for sure whether it's the most explosive compound in the world, you'd have to study it and measure its quality, and no one has been able to do that because it keeps explode .
To put this in perspective, the people whose job it is to use the finest, most delicate instruments to work with unstable compounds have been unable to measure the explosive potential of this compound because it seems that almost everything makes his explode. When moved, it explodes. If you put it in a solution, it explodes. They even tried to analyze its infrared spectrum, and that made it explode. The next time, they had to use a weaker light source in hopes of not blowing it up, which seemed to work, so add "weak light" as something that won't blow it up.
8. VX nerve gas
If you saw Michael Bay's 1996 film The Rock, you may already be familiar with VX gas. That incredibly toxic substance from the movie wasn't just made up for the movie. It's a real thing, and yes, it's super deadly. In fact, it's the deadliest nerve agent in the world, and can cause a wide range of reactions in those exposed, none of which are horrific.
In 2022, the US government destroyed 18,000 VX gas warheads , nearly destroying its entire chemical weapons stockpile, which once contained some 30,000 tons of VX, sarin and mustard gas. Just a few milligrams can be lethal, and they killed Kim Jong-un’s half-brother in 2017.
Symptoms of VX exposure may appear within a few seconds and include a long list of things ranging from eye pain to diarrhea, salivation and vomiting. Paralysis and fatal respiratory failure can follow, thanks to the fact that VX, as a nerve agent, prevents your muscles and glands from "switching off," meaning they become overstimulated, fatigued and unable to continue breathing. Death can occur in just a few minutes depending on the duration of exposure.
7. The incredibly toxic batrachotoxin
The list of compounds that can kill you is surprisingly long. Some substances require prolonged exposure to become lethal, while others can be toxic in terribly small amounts. Batrachotoxin is one such compound.
The poison that makes poison dart frogs so dangerous is a dose of batrachotoxin the size of a two grains of salt can kill a 150 pound adult human. That's 136 micrograms. One tiny frog has about 8 doses in its body. You can see why the toxin was used by local hunters in the same part of the world where the frogs are found. On a small scale, some of these frogs have enough toxin to kill 20,000 mice .
6. dioxygen difluoride
dioxygen difluoride, sometimes known by the deceptively innocuous name FOOF , is a surprisingly reactive substance that has proven too dangerous for scientists to work with in most cases. It is most stable at surprisingly low temperatures, one paper notes. 90 Kelvin , which is about -180 C and -300 F, and even then it is hardly safe. At room temperature it will simply explode violently.
The same article says it explodes instantly on contact with solid ethyl alcohol. It burned instantly when a drop was exposed to methane at 90 K, and exploded when that volume was increased to just 0.2 ml. And all at temperatures lower than you'll ever find naturally on Earth.
FOOF has been exposed to everything from plain water to ammonia, chlorine, phosphorus, and more. Each time, the reaction has been roughly the same: explosion.
5. Piranha's Solution
If you ever want to watch an unpleasant video on Youtube, watch the piranha solution, dissolving chicken legs , and you may lose your appetite. You will see how quickly these particularly effective acids dissolve the flesh.
Many acids are highly corrosive, and we'll see the worst one in the world later, but not all acids are capable of dissolving flesh very quickly. In fact, it can take a full day to completely dissolve muscle and bone. But piranha solutions can separate meat from bone in minutes. It also completely removes bone when submerged in water, making it more effective at removing organic material than pure acid.
Piranha solution is not just an acid, it is three to one mixture sulfuric acid and 30% hydrogen peroxide. The practical goal is to quickly and effectively clean things from organic matter.
4. Sodium cyanide
Cyanide poisoning was once a way to either get rid of someone you didn't want around, or get rid of yourself. Alan Turing may have killed himself by swallowing an apple laced with cyanide, or, maybe just by chance , while eating an apple, and it is believed that Hitler and Ava Braun also relied on cyanide, among several other prominent Nazis in their attempt to escape justice. Their choice also proved effective, as cyanide is still considered one of the most potent poisons in the world.
Once ingested, symptoms may appear within moments and death may occur. in just a few minutes A large enough dose can kill. in just a few seconds . It is also a naturally occurring chemical in which you can find all sorts of things, from seaweed to mushrooms, spinach, almonds, lima beans and peach pits. That's one of the things that makes it so dangerous, because it's everywhere.
3. Fluorantimonic acid
Acids can be quite mild and not at all harmful, like citric acid or acetic acid. But the strongest acids can be extremely dangerous, as we saw with the piranha solution, and you're unlikely to find one as dangerous as fluoroantimonic acid. It's considerably stronger than sulfuric acid. What qualifies as substantial? It's about 20 quintillion times stronger.
It reacts with almost any substance, including glass, and can only be stored in a container lined with polytetrafluoroethylene, better known as like teflon The fumes it emits can cause respiratory failure, and in addition to being able to melt through flesh and bone, it reacts with moisture, so if you get it on your skin, it will burn and explode.
2. Thioacetone
For a change, let's look at thioacetone, a compound that, as far as we know, has never killed anyone. So how is it considered one of the most dangerous in the world? Because thioacetone smells the worst.
No one knows exactly what or why thioacetone smells like, because to determine this would mean making it and enduring it, which is not something anyone can or wants to do. In one of the first recorded instances of its existence, it was produced in a German lab back in 1889 The smell spread from the lab into the surrounding town and was so bad that people panicked and fled the town when they weren't sick or passing out. Try to imagine how bad something would have to smell to be produced in a single building before the townspeople around it would flee in terror.
People in a building 200 yards from the source were vomiting. This was after the cork, just a cork, came off the bottle with the remains and was immediately replaced . Researchers who were apparently blinded by the smell were sprayed with deodorant in a restaurant, and to prove to them how badly their stuff smelled, an experiment was conducted that proved you could smell it from a quarter of a mile away in a matter of seconds.
1. Dimethylcadmium
Dimethylcadmium was named the most dangerous chemical substance in the world, and there are almost no circumstances in which it is safe to be around it. At room temperature, it evaporates quickly, and when inhaled, even a few micrograms may be toxic.
In your body, the chemical travels through your bloodstream to your organs and removes electrons from your cell walls. It is also carcinogenic, so any cells not destroyed by the first route can be destroyed by cancer.
Liquid dimethylcadmium can either catch fire releasing toxic fumes, or drying out to form a highly explosive crust that is highly unstable. If dropped in water, it will simply explode in a series of small explosions. As an added bonus, it apparently stinks as well, so you'll have an olfactory clue that you're about to die if you're ever exposed.
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