• Question: what was the most dangerous experiment you've ever done

    Asked by Alex and Antonia to Sarah, Sankar, Jo, Becky, Alan on 6 Mar 2015. This question was also asked by Rash and Splash.
    • Photo: Jo Sadler

      Jo Sadler answered on 6 Mar 2015:

      A lot of the chemistry experiments I do are potentially quite dangerous. I routinely use toxic compounds, which if not handled properly could have serious effects on my and my colleague’s health. Fortunately, however, we have all been trained to handle them safely so the risk is very low indeed!

      It’s hard to pick the most dangerous one – maybe making HCl gas using salt and neat acid..!

    • Photo: Alan McCue

      Alan McCue answered on 7 Mar 2015:

      The most dangerous experiment I have ever done was probably a time I had to heat concentrated sulfuric acid to boil it. I think I wore 4 pairs of gloves I was that scared of what might happen. The good news though, was because I was really careful – the experiment was actually safer than I thought!

    • Photo: Sarah Kirk

      Sarah Kirk answered on 16 Mar 2015:

      Probably using diethyl zinc, which is very pyrophoric (makes fire) in its neat form: video

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