The toxicity of HF resides with the fluoride anion. Various dental care products contain fluoride, most commonly as stannous fluoride, but even NaF
has found use. The levels are up to a per cent or two. So....
I'm all for chemical safety, it's part of the reason that I'm still around. However, certain chemical's risk factors have taken on mythic proportions,
and HCN and HF are two of them.
unionised - 22-12-2016 at 08:21
After 5 pages, I'm a little surprised that nobody seems to have mentioned picric acid. PeterC - 22-12-2016 at 10:45
Picric acid is very bitter (that's how it got its name), but it should be semi-safe to taste when serially diluted.NitratedKittens - 22-12-2016 at 16:01
I've found a Youtube video of a Russian-speaking MORON who tasted HF (the moron survived, so no Darwin award here). He describes it as "like tasting
hot vinegar".
Having had an accidental whiff of HF, I can tell you it smells much like an off vinegar but with much more sting to the nostrils and back of the
throat. I'm assuming it may taste as such also, just not wanting to be part of that experiment!
Ok, so that's two matching sources about HF, now we know how that tastes.Cryolite. - 22-12-2016 at 16:26
I can provide a third report on the smell on HF. I once accidentally set a small amount of air duster on fire (was working with it near a lit candle),
and before I exited the room I inhaled a small amount of the vapor released from the fire. This contains, among other things, hydrogen fluoride. I
didn't get enough to cause any real toxicity, but I do remember a smell like chemically Tabasco sauce-- vinegary but with some irritation in the back
of the throat.aurora369 - 15-1-2017 at 02:01
That Russian survived. Was there any lasting damage to him?
I think there was, in the form of a ginormous dentist's bill.
There is a fourth report, an anecdote from another Russian chemist, slightly less moronic, but still not very smart. He brought home a plastic bottle
of HF, unmarked, and put it under his bathroom sink together with household chemicals. His mother thought it was vinegar, and attempted to wash a
china cup with it. The china was damaged, and the old woman thought it was bad fake china. The story doesn't mention any direct immediate damage to
the old woman, so I think she also got a drastic increase in dentistry bills but nothing else.
Edit(woelen): User aurora369 is the same as user ave369.
