Hydrides hazards

In an experiment, a slight excess of the hydride is employed to ensure the complete reduction the unused hydride must then be destroyed. This can be done by the cautious addition of (rt) water, or (6) ordinary undried ether, which will ensure that the supply of water is both small and gradual, or (c) an ester such as ethyl acetate, which will be reduced to ethanol. The first of these methods, namely the addition of water, is hazardous and should be avoided. 

This hydrolysis reaction is accelerated by acids or heat and, in some instances, by catalysts. Because the flammable gas hydrogen is formed, a potential fire hazard may result unless adequate ventilation is provided. Ingestion of hydrides must be avoided because hydrolysis to form hydrogen could result in gas embolism. 

Thorium is potentially hazardous. Einely divided thorium metal and hydrides can be explosive or inflammatory hazards with respect to oxygen and halogens. Einely divided Th02 and other inorganic salts also present an inhalation and irritation hazard. The use of standard precautions, skin covering, and a conventional dust respirator should be sufficient for handling thorium materials. 

Hydrides. Zirconium hydride [7704-99-6] in powder form was produced by the reduction of zirconium oxide with calcium hydride in a bomb reactor. However, the workup was hazardous and many fires and explosions occurred when the calcium oxide was dissolved with hydrochloric acid to recover the hydride powder. With the ready availabiHty of zirconium metal via the KroU process, zirconium hydride can be obtained by exothermic absorption of hydrogen by pure zirconium, usually highly porous sponge. The heat of formation is 167.4 J / mol (40 kcal/mol) hydrogen absorbed. 

The drying of flammable solvents with sodium or potassium metal and metal hydrides poses serious potential fire hazards and adequate precautions should be stressed. 

Industrially, chlorine is obtained as a by-product in the electrolytic conversion of salt to sodium hydroxide. Hazardous reactions have occuned between chlorine and a variety of chemicals including acetylene, alcohols, aluminium, ammonia, benzene, carbon disulphide, diethyl ether, diethyl zinc, fluorine, hydrocarbons, hydrogen, ferric chloride, metal hydrides, non-metals such as boron and phosphorus, rubber, and steel. 

Other methods of cleaning iron and steel include immersion in molten sodium hydride and cathodic treatment in molten caustic soda. These methods may be hazardous to personnel, and should not be carried out by the uninitiated, or without professional supervision. 

Tetrahydrofuran was dried and distilled from lithium aluminum hydride prior to use. For a warning concerning potential hazards of this procedure, see Org. Syn., Coll. Vol. 5, 970 (1973). 

Potentially hazardous reactions. Bretherick (1990) used a few general types of potentially hazardous reactions to classify the majority of exothermic reactions involving two or more components. By far the most common type is that involving an oxidant and an oxidizable material. The most common oxidant is air. Some materials will react so rapidly with air that ignition occurs. spontaneously. Finely divided metals or metal hydrides, or fully alkylated... 

Reduction reactions are perhaps the second most common type of potentially hazardous reactions. Materials such as metallic sodium, aluminium, and magnesium hydrazine diborane sodium hydride and hydrogen have all been involved in a wide variety of chemical accidents. 

Dangerous materials may require special equipment. Chlorination with gaseous chlorine requires quite expensive storage facilities. Chlorination with chlorine, thionyl chloride, sulphuryl chloride, phosphorus oxychloride, phosphorus trichloride, or phosphorus pentachloride, all of which are fairly hazardous, requires off-gas treatment. Some of these reactants can be recycled. Pyrophoric solids such as hydrogenation catalysts, anhydrous aluminium trichloride for Friedel-Crafts reactions, or hydrides used as reducing agents should usually be handled using special facilities. Therefore, all of the above proce.sses are usually carried out in dedicated plants. 

However, lithinm aluminum hydride or zinc metal and HCl (5) are required as reducing agents to reduce the thiocyanate to the thiol. These reducing agents are stoichiometric reagents and aren t environmentally acceptable at this time because of their hazardous properties and waste disposal problems on a large manufacturing scale. 

Preparative hazard See Bromine Germane See related METAL HYDRIDES... 

Acylation of diethyl succinate by ethyl trifluoroacetate in presence of sodium hydride and in absence of a solvent is hazardous, fire or explosion occurring on 2 occasions some 10-20 min after adding a tittle of the succinate to the hydride-trifluoroacetate premixture at 60°C. Presence of a solvent appears to eliminate the hazard. 

Of several mixed hydrides, the magnesium-nickel hydrides were the most hazardous in terms of dust explosions. 

The hydride (and the metal) when finely divided are spontaneously flammable, and binning causes a specially dangerous contamination problem, in view of the radioctive and toxic hazards. 

The alloy hydride has been investigated as a useful hydrogenation catalyst for a wide variety of substrates under mild conditions. It is however pyrophoric in air, and an experimental procedure has been developed to avoid this hazard. A related hydride, LaNi4.5Alo.5H5 has similar properties. 

Storage of uranium foil in closed containers in presence of air and water may produce a pyrophoric surface [1], Uranium must be machined in a fume hood because, apart from the radioactivity hazard, the swarf is easily ignited. The massive metal ignites at 600-700°C in air [2]. The finely divided reactive form of uranium produced by pyrolysis of the hydride is pyrophoric [3], while that produced as a slurry by reduction of uranium tetrachloride in dimethoxyethane by potassium-sodium alloy is not [4],... 

Safety considerations are paramount in any boron hydride synthesis. The energy yield from the oxidations of boron hydrides is too high for any cavalier treatment of boron hydrides. Exclusion of air is the critical consideration in diborane reactions. Decaborane(14) is less reactive, generally, in a kinetic sense, but the thermodynamic potential is comparable. In addition, all volatile boron hydrides are toxic. The procedures described in the latter two preparations are within our experience non-hazardous. These procedures should be followed in every detail improvisation is not recommended. 

Reactions of boron hydrides must be carried out with special care. If properly conducted, the reactions reported here proceed without difficulty, but fires which do occur as the result of equipment failures or similar incidents are usually vigorous. It is recommended that all carborane preparations be carried out in areas designated for the use of hazardous materials. 

The use of trimethylsilyl-based electrophilic catalysts with organosilicon hydrides also promotes the conversion of aldehydes into ethers and avoids the need to employ the potentially hazardous trityl perchlorate salt.314,334,338 One reagent pair that is particularly effective in the reductive conversion of aldehydes into symmetrical ethers is a catalytic amount of trimethylsilyl triflate combined with either trimethylsilane, triethylsilane, PMHS,334 or 1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane (TMDO, 64) as the reducing agent (Eq. 179).314 Either... 

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