Acid attacks are unfortunately a common weapon for extremists targeting women and young schoolgirls in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries.
The latest attack was in Zanzibar and targeted a couple British volunteers helping at a school.
Where are they getting acid? I can’t think of a source for HCL or H2SO4 other than a chemistry lab. You could get maybe a cupful from a car battery. But these ladies had a lot more than that flung on them by guys on a motorcycle.
You must have never had to maintain a pool or do a bunch of other tasks where strong acids are needed. Concentrations that are plenty enough to injure people are easily available in large quantities at WalMart, Home Depot, and many other places.
When I was younger, you could just go to a chemical supply shop and buy them. Maybe it is harder today. (I once bought a 5 kg jar of sodium veronal at a retail store, for a legitimate experiment and I had no idea what it really was–we were just following a recipe–until I noticed that the label said sodium veronal (sodium barbitol).)
If you get some sulfur (there are mountains of it, well small hills) at any oil refinery, rarely well guarded. Walk around Stanley Park in Vancouver and look to the other side of the bay. Any chemistry student could prepare sulfuric acid from that.
I never had a pool. I didn’t realize such strong acids were sold retail.
I recall in chemistry class wearing the rubber aprons and goggles when we did acid experiments. They had the emergency showerhead permanently installed in a corner of the classroom. That class always scared me. Thankfully there were no serious accidents my semester.
HCl is commonly sold under the name “muriatic acid”, and used as a lime scale remover (for cleaning sinks, toilets, etc.). It wouldn’t be very useful for an attack, though, since even though it’s a very strong acid by pH, it isn’t actually all that corrosive to skin.
Might not be actual acid. It could be bases like lye or other terribly corrosive materials.
If I had to guess, I’d say you just answered your own question here. Small motorcycle batteries usually don’t come with the electrolyte, so you have to buy the battery and then the acid to fill it up. In the US, you’d probably have to buy out every motorcycle shop in town to get a few liters of the stuff, but I’ll bet in countries where the roads are swarming with little 100cc motorcycles it’s pretty easy to come by. Repair shops that work on the fleets of bikes in the third world may even be able to get stronger acid and dilute it themselves, but I have a few pairs of pants with holes burned in them that show that even the ready-to-use stuff is plenty corrosive.
I beg to differ.
Sulfurous acid was easy to make. Sulfuric acid was a pain in the ass to make.
The two ladies are back in Britain and hospitalized. The early reports I’ve read indicate their eyes weren’t hit with the acid. That’s a major relief. They still have significant injuries that will require attention.
I guess there is some local source where acid is easily obtained even in Afghanistan or Zanzibar. Maybe some kind of industry or manufacturing. A dangerous weapon in the hands of someone ruthless enough to use it.
[QUOTE=Ferret Herder]
Might not be actual acid. It could be bases like lye or other terribly corrosive materials.
[/QUOTE]
This is what I was thinking. I use lye in soap making. It is extremely caustic and when I mix it with liquid the temp quickly shoots to close to 200 degrees. Even little flecks from stirring the raw soap can leave tiny red spots on my skin, so I cannot imagine having it thrown on me. Here in the US anyone can buy it from the hardware store. I can also order it in bulk on the Internet. Certainly easy to get.
I asked the same question in a similar thread and was told you can pick up battery acid at any gas station. I’ve never had reason to, so YMMV.
I’ve bought 55 gallon drums of HCL on line for our company from places like Cole-Parmer and VWR. They sell the stuff readily in smaller bottles also.
I got this from a pool supply place. Two jugs like this in a box for about fifteen dollars.
http://cdn.streamzoo.com/si_13016494_06xqsm2sxq_lr.jpg
No, I do not have a pool.
Also used to removing cement stains during construction work such as bricklaying or rendering, any decent hardware store will have the concentrated version.
Out of curiosity, I googled “acheter acide sulfurique” and the first hit was a major French home improvement store that offers the stuff by the liter at 37% concentration.
So, I googled “buying sulfuric acid” but then the hits where rather “where can I buy the stuff?” “The mechanic won’t sell me battery acid”, etc…so I assume it’s more difficult to get your hand on it in at least some English-speaking countries.
However, it’s on sale on Amazon at 98% concentration. I don’t know how to check whether they’ll sell it to Joe Average or not and to which countries they will ship it but no mention about sale restrictions appears on the page. However, one buyer comment was posted by an American living in Florida.
I’m going to guess that regulations about the sale of this stuff vary a lot depending on the country and that it’s possibly easily available in Zanzibar.
Just looked on Amazon UK and Sulphuric, Nitric and Hydrochloric acid are available and not expensive. Also Sodium Hydroxide.
Nasty stuff all of it. It beggars belief that anyone can chuck that stuff at someone else. There have been several incidents of it in the UK recently.
Welcome to the third world, where safety laws are much laxer, and few people have sealed car batteries. Every corner mechanic shop probably has a few jugs of the stuff to try and revive batteries (they don’t just throw things out at the first sign of trouble), and a source where they can buy more.
30 or 40 years ago you used to be able to buy even chemicals to make gunpowder over the counter at some drugstores, and the only safety impediment was a nosy and smart pharmacy owner. (“I know what you are buying this for…”) These sort of controls may be law here, but they have bigger problems in the third world.
You can get potassium nitrate, powdered sulfur and high quality powdered charcoal on Amazon for cheap, and back in the late 1980s, you could get the KNO3 at the grocery store.
I don’t think there are laws against gunpowder ingredients, just that stores may move them to the pharmacy where you have to ask for it.