My old Chemistry teacher
Used to tell a similar story from when she worked in industry. They actually used Hydrofluoric acid in certain tests - the catch was that it would etch through glass, given time. They tested each vessel by holding it over a bin and hitting it with a hammer. If it didn't break, it passed.

All was well, until one day when someone didn't hammer quite as hard as they should have. She left an experiment to run for 20 minutes and returned to find that the flask had broken, the acid dissolved all the others (another twelve I think), melted its way through the fume cupboard and was in the process of burning its way through the floor.


She also said that they had a special pot of cream in case someone got some on them - it was a cast-iron, pain-of-sacking-on-the-spot rule that you were never more than six seconds away from the cream because after that, there wasn't much point using it.


(For those that don't know, Hydrofluoric acid is particularly nasty because it doesn't really burn the skin - it sinks through and dissolves your bones from the inside)
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 13 Feb 2009, 20:19, 1 reply)

Too right
HF is horrible stuff. The reaction with bones is catalytic, too, so once it starts it just keeps going. If you get splashed and don't deal with it at once, the ONLY treatment is amputation at the next major joint up, On your finger, lose your hand. On your wrist, lose your forearm.

I used to use it in a cocktail for etching niobium superconductors. It is the only thing I have ever used at work which seriously terrified me.
(ubergeekian, Sat 14 Feb 2009, 1:49, closed)