Happy Dyngus day.
Formaldehyde is both a toxic and useful compound. Unfortunately, it's a gas, so it's tough to move around. Typically, you get it as a solution in water - with some methanol to keep it from polymerizing into "paraformaldehyde," which is the other major way to get it. Both are a pain - one has water, which is poison for a lot of reactions, and one acts like brick dust - it won't dissolve in anything.
Trioxane is the third way - it's well-behaved and soluble. Hooray trioxane!
- Log in to post comments
More like this
This is just unbelievable. At a day care center in Arkansas, 10 kids were accidentally given windshield wiper fluid instead of Kool-Aid:
Child welfare investigators plan to talk to the owner of an Arkansas daycare center where 10 children were sickened after they were given windshield wiper fluid…
Toward the end of last year, being in possession of two novelties - a girlfriend and a steady job - I decided to spend my free evenings crafting a very special piece of jewellery. I was inspired by a visit to Barometer World in the late summer, where I discovered the curious material known as storm…
Wall of Fishes, Vanderbilt Museum
from Curious Expeditions
Nothing symbolizes the amateur naturalist's aesthetic as well as a wall of preserved specimens in glass jars, like the jewellike Wall of Fishes in the Vanderbilt Museum (captured here by the wonderful Curious Expeditions, in a fascinating…
During one of our recent visits to The Tech Museum, we ran across a fun hands-on activity. The pretty purplish circle pictured here is what the younger Free-Ride offspring produced in this activity.
The kids thought they were just doing an art project. But there's science in that art.
The art…
This was also commonly used in the military for heating food and liquids. They would issue these, you put them under a canteen cup, set a match to them and the light up for about 5-10 minutes. They were called 'heat tabs', I didn't really see them that often when I was in (1996-2004) and some websites have mentioned health problems when used without adequate ventilation, so I don't think they're used much anymore.