INCOMPATIBLES A CLASH OF VIOLENT PROPORTIONS

Preview This section describes incompatibles, why they should not be mixed, and steps to prevent incompatibles from coming in contact with each other. 

What lessons can be learned from these incidents  

Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students, Second Edition. Robot H. Hill, Jr. and David C. Finster. 2016 John Wiley Sons, Inc. Published 2016 by John Wiley Sons, Inc. 

FIGURE 5.2.3.1 Chemical hood after the explosion described in Incident 5.2.3.2. (Courtesy of Mark E. Brady. 

There are hundreds of chemicals in common use and thousands of less frequently used chemicals that could be used as part of any particular lab experiment or process. Memorizing all the combinations and permutations of potentially incompatible chemicals is not possible. The goal in this section is to learn about some specific incompatible mixtures but more generally to learn about combinations of incompatible chemical groups. Some fundamental chemistry can help you think about the properties and structures of molecules that might predict them as chemicals having incompatible partners . 

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