Reactive inorganic reagents

Some highly reactive chemicals and their dangerous properties are listed below. Those which give off highly corrosive irritant and/or toxic vapours or, if solids, are similarly hazardous in the form of dusts, are marked with an asterisk ( ) and should only be used in fume cupboards. More details concerning the properties of many of these are given in Section 4.2. Specific information on the hazardous properties of individual chemicals is collected in several comprehensive works.8 -11 

All of the following react violently with bases and most give off very harmful vapours. 

Sulphuric acid (concentrated and oleum ) - should always be mixed with water very carefully, by pouring into cold water as a thin stream to prevent acid splashes or spray. Chromic acid cleaning mixtures have the corrosive properties of concentrated sulphuric acid as well as the dangerous oxidising properties of the chromic acid. 

Calcium oxide, potassium hydroxide and sodium hydroxide - these react violently with acids, generate heat on contact with water, and have a powerful corrosive action on the skin, particularly the corneal tissue of the eye. 

All are toxic and corrosive. Great care should be exercised when working with fluorine, which is violently reactive towards a wide range of substances. The interhalogen compounds are also powerfully reactive. 

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Spacer chains affect intrinsic reactivity as well as intraparticle diffusion. Rates for Br-I exchange reactions with spacer-modified catalyst 41 were larger than those with catalyst 35 containing no spacer (Fig. 11). An aliphatic spacer makes the catalyst more lipophilic and the intrinsic reactivity of the active site larger, though the intraparticle diffusity of an inorganic reagent is reduced. It is not known at this time how intrinsic reactivity contributes to the rate increase. 

These solvents dissolve both organic and inorganic reagents but in dissolving ibnic compounds, solvate cations most strongly, and leave the anions relatively unencumbered and highly reactive anions are more basic and more nucleophilic. 

Phase-transfer catalysis (PTC) is one of the most important methods for the enhancement of reactivity of inorganic reagents having poor solubility in organic solvents. As such, PTC is often used for reactions involving potassium fluoride, which has very low solubility in aprotic solvents. Both types of phase-transfer catalysts, quaternary ammonium salts and 18-crown-6, have been used to accelerate... 

Presumably, this will lead to the ability to stabilize a series of less stable inorganic and organic cationic, anionic and neutral convex compounds by molecular encapsulation. We can foresee phase transfer reactions and phase transfer catalysis with masked uncharged organic molecules modified in this way in their solubility and reactivity. Approved reagents may be modified with regard to reactivity and selectivity of the reaction. 

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