I want to be very careful here, because I don’t want to give a recipe. However I do have a couple of questions.
First: I read on a dot-org site that chlorine gas can be release by mixing two ingredients, and that by heating the mixture phosgene gas is generated.
Second: I read a book called Lucifer’s Hammer several years ago, about an asteroid strike that causes a socio-economic collapse. A group of survivors has built a working society that is in danger of being taken over by a paramilitary army. One of the weapons they used was phosgene. It didn’t say how they made it, but it must have been fairly simple given their situation. IIRC, a character said that the gas would be a good fertilizer when it decomposed.
First question: Is chlorine gas and phosgene gas really that easy to make?
Second question: Does phosgene really act as a fertilizer when it decomposes?
I don’t know the answers to your questions but I can tell you that one year when I was driving a tank truck tending fertilizer sprayers we were tested for phosgene. We had to carry a card telling our test results in case of an accident. This only happened once in the six years I drove for them.
Well, having some experience in this area (a friend used to work for DOW), all I can say without giving an actual recipie is that like any recipie in the old Anarchist’s Cookbook, it may SOUND that easy to make, but in reality it’s not quite that simple. There is quite a bit of equiptment needed to be able to make phosgene gas, and having a good amount of knowledge in the chemical field would also be useful to ensure that you don’t blow your damn fool head off or gas yourself. I really wouldn’t try this at home, kids.
Just out of curiosity, why do you want to know? Not that I think you are a terrorist wacko or anything…
It’s extremely easy to make small amounts of chlorine gas with stuff you have around the house, but it would be a lot harder to make enough of it to use it as a weapon.
Useful household hint-if you decide to try to make an uber-cleanser by mixing chlorine-based and ammonia-based detergents in a small, poorly-ventilated room, please have the courtesy to have an up-to-date and valid last will and testament in a place easily accessible to your executor and/or next of kin! This can help prevent a lot of problems in probate court.
Chlorine gas is ridiculously easy to make. In a chemistry lab “Identify the unknown ions” test I was being careless and added an excess of one of the ingredients producing a foaming gas. I couldn’t tell what it was by the smell (I had a cold) so I tried a couple more times and then asked the teacher. In a little while he came back coughing and identified it as chlorine! Fortunately I was in excellent shape at the time. Still I had a funny taste in the back of my throat for a few days and I was short of breath for a week or so.
My sister-in-law nearly killed herself while cleaning a shower this way. As a safety tip I would add: only use chlorine based products in a well ventilated area!
Phosgene gas can be released/made by heating freon .(R-22 used in home AC units or R-11 used in commercial AC “chillers”)
As a safety precaution, HVAC people will not smoke in or around an area where Freon is being reclaimed or added.
Inhaling freon thru a lit cigarette will create phosgene gas.
Back in the old days before fancy electronics you detected leaks in car A/C systems with a small torch. When it burns, R-12 (dichlorodifluoromethane by the way, not freon) turns the flame bright red. The instuctions for using these detectors also go on to say that it releases phosgene gas and that one strong wiff of it would kill you.
Trichlorofluoromethane, trade name Freon R-11, manufactured by Dupont.So R-12 is called “freon” also.So is R-22 and R-114. They are all Halocarbons,being phased out.
FREON is a trade name used by Dupont,kinda like calling all facial tissues Kleenex.
justwannano, there isn’t any fertillizer that I know of that actually has nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium combind in a single molecule. The phosphorus is usually in the form of phosphate (PO[sub]4[/sub][sup]-3[/sup]), nitrogen is often in the form of ammonia (NH[sub]3[/sub]) and urea (CO(NH[sub]2[/sub])[sub]2[/sub]), and I have no idea about the potassium. Notice that urea is similar chemically to phosgene. I doubt you could get phosgene from urea, but you might be able to get urea from phosgene.
I found a website that says that phosgene can be formed by mixing carbon monoxide and chlorine in the presence of the a catalyst or from the thermal decomposition of chlorinated hydrocarbons (such as CFC’s), as Rich G7subs said.
Not exactly, juswannano. Unless you have actually studied how phosgene decomposes in the environment, or are willing to provide such studies that show that exactly how phosgene decomposes you can’t possibly speak definitively on this.
Phosgene contains a carbonyl group (a carbon and oxygen doublely bonded together). This is perhaps the most important and versatile functional group in all of organic group. There are literally thousands of reactions that involve changing the two substituants of the carbonyl group. Under the right conditions phosgene could be changed into a huge variety of things, urea was just one example.
The fact that phosgene contains no potassium, nirtogen, or phosphorus is irrelevant. We are talking about what it will turn into in the environment. Believe it or not there is a lot of potassium, nitrogen, and phosphorus out there in the environment. It is possible that phosgene is capable of pulling amines off of larger organic compounds to produce urea. I don’t know. If you know for sure, please enlighten me.
Before the thread was edited there was a link that noted that when phosgene was combined with water it turned into several harmless components.
Chemical companies often produce farm chemicals that when added to water produce the desired results. Substances containing sulfur comes to mind. You can smell the sulfur when working with them. The result is sulfuric acid H[sub]2[/sub]SO[sub]4[/sub]that helps decompose corn stalks etc.
Maybe this is more like what you mean rather than fertilizer.
