[HN Gopher] Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride (2010)
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Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride (2010)
Author : PebblesRox
Score : 195 points
Date : 2025-03-31 10:58 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.science.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.science.org)
| perihelions wrote:
| Previously:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=dioxygen%20difluoride
|
| And others in the series:
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=things%20won%27t%20work
|
| https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-wo...
|
| High overlap with: (rocket fuels)
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ignition%20informal
| thedanbob wrote:
| I hated high school chemistry but both this series and that
| book are among my favorite scientific reads.
| baq wrote:
| Ignition! is highly recommended.
| robocat wrote:
| PDF: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43529378
| wiredfool wrote:
| Absolute classic of the genera At seven hundred
| freaking degrees, fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic
| radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature.
| If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical sentences
| and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a violent
| lunatic.
| pixl97 wrote:
| Ah yes, FOOF. The last sound you hear before you melt, explode,
| blow up, and disassociate at a molecular level.
| m4rtink wrote:
| And all of that at the same time! ;-)
| mouse_ wrote:
| I clicked that permalink to lateral science ("Blown up or
| poisoned") and unfortunately the website appears to be hacked. :(
| doug-moen wrote:
| The page is archived, and it is a fun read:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20111229065146/http://www.latera...
| bovermyer wrote:
| I wonder if you can still order a kilo of "Satan's kimchi" from
| that supplier in China. If you ever could.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Check the address. If the building is still standing, then no.
| stuartjohnson12 wrote:
| > Hangzhou Sage Chemical Company. They offer it in 100g, 500g,
| and 1 kilo amounts, which is interesting, because I don't think a
| kilo of dioxygen difluoride has ever existed. Someone should call
| them on this - ask for the free shipping, and if they object,
| tell them Amazon offers it on this item. Serves 'em right.
| Morons.
|
| Gold
| s0rce wrote:
| Some chemical suppliers seem to have autogenerated items,
| some/many are non-sense and I guess they just hope that you
| find something and they can make it? I found the example below
| a while ago but they have since removed it.
|
| https://www.nanochemazone.com/product/argon-powder/
| ahazred8ta wrote:
| The argon powder is still there. Great for Apr01.
| https://www.nanochemazone.com/argon-powder/ -- https://web.ar
| chive.org/web/20250331192328/https://www.nanoc...
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Is argon powder actually impossible? Of course it couldn't
| exist as pictured but below 80K does anything prohibit it?
| s0rce wrote:
| No, its not impossible. You can make it in the lab
| without too much difficulty if you have liquid nitrogen.
| Just not sold like this and you can't really contain it
| in a practical vessel as the pressure at room temperature
| would be too extreme, you store liquids or compressed
| gases.
| leoc wrote:
| Someone finding themselves obliged to make and deliver a kilo
| of this stuff would be a strong opening for a shounen manga.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| More likely an isekai story, for variety over the usual
| truck.
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| The Rocketdyne Tripropellant rocket had great specific impulse,
| one of the best. But-- there are many reasons it never caught on:
| one of the byproducts was FOOF, along with other things like
| hydrofluoric acid.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Sounds OK in vacuum...
| Sharlin wrote:
| If you want to actually get momentum out of a rocket, the
| reaction products are going to touch the combustion chamber
| walls and the nozzle. While film cooling can help with
| minimizing heat transfer from the hot stuff, I doubt it's
| enough to keep this stuff from eating your engine from the
| inside.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| "These modern SpaceX kids and their fancy reusables. Back
| in my day, when we went to space, we used the _whole_
| engine! "
| narag wrote:
| Something like this?
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/vpu3fv/lockhee
| d_s...
| rbanffy wrote:
| That's what engine-rich exhaust is for.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Hmm, I wonder if anyone has tried to use ablative
| coatings in a rocket engine.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Arguably, the solid rocket motor is in this vein. While
| I've never seen a design that consumes the outer shell,
| the inner material is designed to burn as completely as
| possible, and the chemistry and physical composition is
| even designed to cause the burn to happen in a proper
| combustion-chamber shape.
| Sharlin wrote:
| Yeah, good point!
| tekla wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executor_(rocket_engine)
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| Yeah, that was one of the downsides.
|
| They actually did build a test article and ran the engine a
| few times, enough to gather the data but it indeed ate the
| engine, and the concrete and the rocks and coated it all
| with explosive powder.
|
| They did imagine coating the proposed launch complex with
| quartz but it quickly became obvious it was going to be way
| too expensive to actually build.
| the8472 wrote:
| The line between serious proposals and shitposting is thin.
|
| https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19700022572
| https://x.com/ToughSf/status/1769958999279927787
| fweimer wrote:
| Hmm, maybe it was part of NAIL SPIKE?
| https://reactormag.com/a-tall-tail/
| khuey wrote:
| The 50s and 60s were a wild time.
| rbanffy wrote:
| I remember this article and I'm laughing before I even click the
| link. What a delightful read. Even more delightful I've never
| encountered this molecule.
| ourmandave wrote:
| Dioxygen Difluoride
|
| That both words start with DIe! is enough to warn me off.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Dihydorgen Dioxide. Oh no!
| jerf wrote:
| Not the best example. Hydrogen peroxide is actually rather
| nasty when highly pure. I mean, it's got nothing on FOOF, not
| many things do, but it's still in a class where it needs to
| be handled with care and shouldn't be handed to non-
| professionals. Don't be fooled by the fact it's sold in
| grocery stores at low concentrations.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Not as bad as FOOF, but still burns on contact to an open
| sore.
| masklinn wrote:
| Pure hydrogen peroxide will do a _lot_ worse than burn on
| contact with an open sore, unless you mean "set your
| sore on fire" (though it's more likely to detonate, or
| spontaneously dissociate into steam and pure oxygen).
|
| Usual solutions for disinfection are 3~5%, at 35% h2o2
| will bleach skin, and bite through it.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| 30% is non-chlorine pool shock, and readily available
| where I am (VT). As it happens, it's also one of the
| parts of two part wood bleach. The other part is a
| solution of NaOH (lye, available in solid form for drain
| opener). Works great, best used while wearing gloves and
| a face shield.
| psunavy03 wrote:
| Read up on the Me-163 if you want to see the craziness
| that's involved with using high-purity H2O2 as an
| oxidizer. With a hydrazine/methanol mix fuel to boot.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Sure. We also call it bleach :P
| jerf wrote:
| Bleach, when people refer to the general product you can
| buy in the grocery store called "bleach", is sodium
| hypochlorite, not hydrogen peroxide.
|
| You can call hydrogen peroxide bleach, or a bleaching
| agent, but if you ask your significant other for "bleach"
| you're not going to get hydrogen peroxide.
| icehawk wrote:
| High test peroxide is used as a rocket monopropellant, and
| was involved with the loss of the submarines _HMS Sidon_ and
| _Kursk_.
| Ygg2 wrote:
| Many things are used as rocket propellant not least of
| which O2. As in all things dose makes the poison.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals,
| thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature. But that 's how
| you get it to react with oxygen to make a product that's worse in
| pretty much every way._
|
| That kind of prose is why I love reading this chap's stuff.
| genocidicbunny wrote:
| There's something reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's style to
| Derek's "Things I Won't Work With" series.
| blantonl wrote:
| This guy's writing style makes him a worldwide treasure, and
| probably inspired a few young chemists.
|
| I'll always read and re-read his blog posts when they are posted
| here.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| FOOF-sulfur rocket engine would be fun.
| GarnetFloride wrote:
| That would be most definitely be classed as Type-3 fun.
| IlikeKitties wrote:
| Not a Chemist but reminded me about this article:
| https://gizmodo.com/chlorine-trifluoride-the-chemical-that-s...
|
| > Just to get the ball rolling, here's a few of the more unusual
| things chlorine trifluoride is known to set fire to on contact:
| glass, sand, asbestos, rust, concrete, people, pyrex, cloth, and
| the dreams of children...
| btilly wrote:
| Derek Lowe also did chlorine trifluoride:
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-
| yo....
| CommieBobDole wrote:
| "It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and
| test engineers"
| borski wrote:
| He wrote that one too, heh:
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...
|
| It's linked in the article
| QuesnayJr wrote:
| That's a different article. The Gizmodo article has a byline
| of "Melissa" and apparently is originally from
| TodayIFoundOut.com.
| groby_b wrote:
| So, might be "inspiration". I suspect "Melissa" did not
| "find out today" - chlorine trifluoride isn't exactly the
| stuff you discuss at your average dinner table.
|
| You need a whole bunch of expertise to write about it.
| Gizmodo does not usually have this expertise, but its
| writers _do_ usually recognize snappy writing that might go
| viral.
| speed_spread wrote:
| Knowing that rust can burn should make the joy of a few Linux
| maintainers.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| Makes me wonder if it could burn a fire elemental. :)
|
| They seem to model any chemical damage as "acid" and fire
| elementals aren't immune to acid so I would be inclined to say
| it would.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| There are two kinds of popular reposts in the world.
|
| Most are Type 1, which is "meh, this again" followed by a scroll
| away.
|
| This is an excellent example of Type 2, which is "Oh boy! I get
| to read this again!"
|
| (See also: the SR71 speed check story; the story of Mel, the Real
| Programmer; etc.)
| MaKey wrote:
| I'd like to add the "We can't send mail more than 500 miles"
| story to that list:
| https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles
| ubermonkey wrote:
| OH, absolutely. That's another gem!
| PebblesRox wrote:
| Ah, the SR-71 was new to me, thank you!
|
| https://www.thesr71blackbird.com/Aircraft/Stories/sr-71-blac...
|
| http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/story-of-mel.html
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Ah, good ol' FOOF: the chemical with the convenient name-
| synchronicity to what it will do to you!
| spacedcowboy wrote:
| Chemical nominative determinism at its best.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| There's also FOOOF and FOOOOF, as well as FOOOOOF
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_fluoride#
| salgernon wrote:
| Kind of like CAR CAAR etc.
| relwin wrote:
| YouTube chemists visit Dr. Kraus' fluorine lab in Germany:
| https://youtu.be/UzIH6raTxyE?si=74Pfn0i8Whq09Iim
| speckx wrote:
| Relevant https://what-if.xkcd.com/40/
| philipwhiuk wrote:
| Good old FOOF
| zidad wrote:
| Found my next metal band name, thanks!
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Ideally makes heavy use of pyrotechnics.
| tonetegeatinst wrote:
| Have already read this before and was interesting.
|
| I did some research and inquiry and found out you can in fact get
| florine gas....and they can even compress it in tanks if you
| want.
| api wrote:
| I think there's some stuff in a book called _Ignition_ about
| experiments using Fluorine as an oxidizer in rocket engines to
| get a little better specific impulse than oxygen. Only problem is
| that the exhaust is hydrofluoric acid at thousands of degrees.
| Yipe.
| nottorp wrote:
| Ignition has that lovely paragraph about some fluorine based
| fuel leaking out of the truck that was transporting it* and
| going through the road surface and then through the half a
| meter of concrete and stone under the asphalt, alien style.
|
| * the only way to move that fuel was in a refrigerated
| cistern... at a temp so low that the steel it was made of
| became brittle and cracked.
|
| I think it's quoted in one of Derek Lowe's articles about
| fluorine compounds too.
| perihelions wrote:
| https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-
| yo...
| UncleSlacky wrote:
| Obligatory dowmload link:
| https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
| perihelions wrote:
| From memory, that book went in at least four different
| directions with fluorine compounds. Parts are about increasing
| specific impulse; parts are about increasing density impulse
| (fluorine's very dense); parts are about formulating oxidizers
| hypergolic with kerosene or with hydrogen; parts are about
| formulating oxidizers for deep space probes, with a
| melting/boiling point range matched to that thermal
| environment.
|
| O3F2 is the one that if you add it to liquid oxygen, it makes
| hydrogen/oxygen combustion hypergolic.
|
| Direct link: (.pdf)
| https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...
| api wrote:
| > O3F2 is the one that if you add it to liquid oxygen, it
| makes hydrogen/oxygen combustion hypergolic.
|
| O3F2 sounds like it'd be hypergolic with engineers. Nope.
| baq wrote:
| > O3F2 sounds like it'd be hypergolic with engineers. Nope.
|
| Engineers. Asbestos. Sand.
|
| Can confirm 'Nope'.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Its probably hypergolic even with Nope. ;-)
| wiredfool wrote:
| There's also adding a bit of Flourine to one of the Fuming
| Nitric Acids to make it easier to handle, because of the
| flouridation of the surface of the tanks.
| chasd00 wrote:
| > a book called Ignition
|
| that book is really good and has some interesting hidden
| treasures, like a couple of sentences about adding silicon oil
| to the fuel mixture to create a self-ablating film on the
| combustion chamber. I think some amateur bi-prop engine guys
| use that in their fuel setups. It's funny how the book ends
| after all that research and exotic chemicals with JP-1 and
| liquid O2 are still pretty much the best combination.
| wiredfool wrote:
| And the bit about using dimethyl mercury as a monopropellant.
| pazimzadeh wrote:
| hopefully this isn't trending because of the recent controversy
| about fluoride in tap water?
| tverbeure wrote:
| I will always reread the story about Satan's Kimchi.
| RandomBacon wrote:
| Bit rot: the article links to http://www.lateralscience.co.uk
| which is now just an advertisement for online gambling.
| philipkglass wrote:
| Here's a good snapshot of that page as it appeared in 2010,
| when this article linked to it:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20100430182802/http://www.latera...
| cwillu wrote:
| FOOF, not to be confused with the FLOOF's that _everyone_ wants
| to work with
| cperciva wrote:
| FOOF, not to be confused with F00F (a bug in the Pentium which
| allowed unprivileged processes to lock up the system):
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug
| sortalongo wrote:
| > 433 kcal/mole
|
| For reference, TNT is 1kcal/g. This is 6.2 kcal/g.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Less of a FOOF and more of a BOOM
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| In case you weren't dissuaded by the article, here's the
| synthesis procedure that it starts off by referencing:
| https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1139(00)803...
| mmonaghan wrote:
| I love Derek Lowe's writing. I think I've read most of his
| articles but this series is my favorite.
| narrator wrote:
| A. G. Streng would probably have been forgotten about like so
| many if he hadn't been such a risk taking experimental chemist.
| Now someone's probably going to make a movie or comic book about
| him.
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