X-Message-Number: 4754 Date: 10 Aug 95 15:41:31 EDT From: Mike Darwin <> Subject: CRYONICS Hydrofluoric acid First I want to make a comment of a kind I rarely make: to offer high praise, in this case to Eugen Leitel. Eugen and I have corresponded privately a bit and I think I can say that he is one of the brighter and more pragmatic minds to ever have a serious interest in cryonics. He independently hit on an idea to use MR imaging which we have toyed with (and which, from our end, is confidetial/proprietary) and he did this without a clue. I saw two of the brightest minds in cryonics, one being a medical physicict and the other a top drawer physician come up with this idea independently in my presence. It was not an "easy" exercise for them even given their extensive knowledge and background. Eugen has demonstrated a fantastic ability to grasp complex and subtle problems which have taken others of formidable intellect a long time to even see, let alone consider. Perhaps most impressive is that Eugen grew up in the heart of (his words) the Great Satan :) (the former USSR) and emigarted to Germany. Why this is impessive is his astounding command of the english language including idioms. He passed my Turing test for being a native AMERICAN english speaker: I mistakenly thought he was in the US and made suggestions that he utilize the MEDLINE database; it was only then that I learned he was in Germany and had immigrated in youth from the USSR. Any time Eugen wants a job in the US working in our lab, he's got it. A word of warning to Eugen: please don't let this swell your head too much. Ultimately it isn't just how smart you are, but what you DO with it. I have worked with and known some very bright people. Recently, the colleague of one of these peole summed up the problem very well when he said: I've known X for many years and X is a really bright person with tremendous capabilities; but the problem is X just can't seem to make it to the hoop." (This is a basketball analogy which will be lost on many non-Americans, essentially what it means is that some players can have a superb knowledge of the game, be technically excellent in every aspect of it, but simply be unable to "pull it all together" and score.) While Eugen deserves all the praise I've given him (and more) I just want to do my expected sthick of "looking at the bad side of things" (1). Here, the downside is nonexistent IF: you take your brains and (my advice which), in this case, is to work as hard as you can to get where you want to go assuming internally that you are an idiot instead of a genius. :) I find Eugen's comments on hydrofluoric acid very funny and appropos. The following story is something I don't think I've told anyone about, but is worth (I hope) telling here. A long time ago I was looking for a nontoxic liquid cooling media for cryopreservation patients which could replace the flammable and ice dissolving n-propyl alcohol then in use, I looked at many different compounds and my first choice was flurocarbons which were cheap, in widespread use (huge tanks of them were used to wash semiconmductors, circuit boards, etc.) stayed liquid over a wide range of temperatures, did not alter viscosity very much on cooling, were not water soluble or toxic, and which were not flammable. This was before the "ozone hole days". Over at the lab in Fullerton we had no central heat in the back. I thus kept warm running a space heater. I had picked a compound I liked for "large-scale" testing with dry ice in a picnic chest, sitting on the floor not very far from the space heater. The test went well, except for a funny cough and watery eyes which I developed and which I attributed to allergies (we had two dogs in the facility at the time). A few hours later I noticed that the space heater wasn't working. Then I noticed that the space heater wasn't really there anymore. Oh sure, on first examination it looked like a space heater, but when you looked inside, well, it looked like the thing had been charred out with an oxy-acetylene torch. The lesson here is that even "stable" compounds of fluorine which are very nontoxic and harmless can turn into nasty customers under the right conditions. My quite inert freon, being heavier than air, (and cold to boot) simply tracked along the floor to be sucked up into the intake of the space heater. Probable resulting decomposition product: hydrofluroic acid. I dropped the idea of freons for those and other reasons. I consider myself lucky to not have been killed. In fact, it was proably only that the building was so poorly sealed and was sieve for airflow from the outside that I *wasn't* killed. This story doesn't have any direct bearing on the issues at hand, but I thought it worth repeating since it taught me a powerful lesson about the "unpredictability" of flurorine and fluroinated compounds -- even "safe" ones. Incidentally, Eugen cannot be given credit for "demonizing" hydrofluroic acid by calling it evil. It was demonized many, many years ago, even before both Ralp Merkle and I were. (Inside info: where do you think Ralph got the idea from! Shame on you Ralph for not crediting The Source). On a related matter, sadly, I have learned that Ralph got only the silver clad horns and thus is forced to spend a great of his time polishing them. Between the sulfur and the hydrofluoric acid in the air down here, its pretty much a full time job. However, if Ralph continues to use his free time wisely I've no doubt he'll get upgraded to Gold Status (as high as you can go down here; platinum doped diamond is only for the Master). As to someone's remarks to Charles Platt about his chem teacher using hydrofluoric acid: they are right on the money: NO WAY! What Charles is probably recalling is acid dichromate (which contains sulfuric acid and is a yellow-orange colored solution when diluted for use) which WAS used to clean especially dirty glassware. Alas, the water district people, the liability attoneys and the Haz-Mat folks have other ideas. When we moved into our lab in Rancho I was told in no uncertain terms: pour a nanogram of this stuff down the drain and you'll go to jail! I had to get rid of it :( ! They now have alternatives on the market, but they still can't beat acid dichromate. Mike Darwin Never wrong, but not always right. (1) As Naomi Reynolds once described me: "Some people see the glass as half empty. Some people see the glass as half full. Mike Darwin sees the glass as half empty, the only option available to drink to someone dying of thirst, and BTW, the water is loaded with toxic chemical which will kill painfully and horribly if consumed." Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=4754