vassili78
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Sarin from Ball-point ink by "CSIS"
Hello
i found something interesting but a little bit doubtfull on a canadian Web site. It comes from the web site of the Canadian Security Intelligence
Service:
http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/pblctns/thr/cbtrrrsm03-eng.asp
"One of the deadliest chemicals known, VX Nerve Gas, can be produced with books from the local library, and requires no special materials or
knowledge. Ball
-point pen ink is only one chemical step removed from Sarin"
They talk about the ball-point ink like if it was a pur chemical with an determinated formula but this ink is the result of the mixing of several
products.
An ink can sometime contain 90 % of solvent this solvents can be for exemple isocyanates, butyrolactone, stearic acid, propylen glycol benzyl
glycol...
Others compoment of the ink represent less than 20 % of the total mass so i think that they are not usables without extraction.
Even with 90% solvent i don't think that an ink can really be used to produce Sarin.
What is the exact composition or formula of Ball-Point Ink and is it really possible to do something with that.
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kclo4
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Sounds highly unlikely to me, it gives a source for this claim though: "(77) See also Jenkins and Rubin, who write that "only primitive facilities are
required to carry out some threats....No technical sophistication at all is required to purchase and use these toxins" (1978: 223-4)."
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Sauron
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It is a ridiculous assertion.
VX is produced from materials that are relatively hard to come by, and relatively toxic themselves, so that anyone making the attempt is very likely
to die before getting to then final product.
Sarin GB is a bit easier but again so toxic that the attempt would likely be your last.
I have no idea what the Canadian spooks are on about.
The only really common components are ethanol for VX and isopropanol for GB. These are trivial.
Sic gorgeamus a los subjectatus nunc.
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panziandi
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Indeed Sauron is correct. Only the alcohols used, methanol, ethanol, isopropanol and to a lesser extent, cyclohexanol are easily obtainable and
benign. The remaining compounds, phosphorus chlorides etc, are usually highly toxic, corrosive, and regulated chemicals. I doubt biro ink has anything
to do with it! ... Likely the author looked up an alcohol used in nerve gas manufacture online and found it was a solvent in ink and decided to report
it in an artical about how "easy" it is.
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Polverone
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This appears to be a distorted/embellished retelling of the the fact that thiodiglycol, which is one synthetic step away from mustard gas, is a
component of some inks.
PGP Key and corresponding e-mail address
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garage chemist
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It's true that thiodiglycol is converted to mustard gas by simply heating it with conc. HCl.
If there are still inks actually containing it I don't know, but I think it's unlikely that there are any.
I call bullshit on the Sarin story. There are no Sarin precursors that would be of any value in inks (phosphorus chlorides and fluorides are unstable
towards moisture).
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Sauron
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Andi, methanol is not used. you are right about cyclohexanol, the other alcohol sometimes used is pinacolyl alcohol from redn of pinacolone., this is
used in the semipersistant agent GD mostly by the Russians. The hindered alcohol slows down hydrolysis of the P-OR bond. Note that all three
(isopropyl, pinacolyl and cyclohexyl) are secondary alcohols. In the G-series that is important.
Ethanol is only employed in GA Tabun and in VX. Buth different beasties, No P(=O)F.
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vassili78
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Pretty big mistake for a government document. They don't verify what they write. Sarin from ball-point ink is a very scary thing.
On Another web site of the canadian government they talk about the risk of thiodiglycol misuses. It is hard to control this chemical product because
its use can be good or bad. It is a very common chemical product in industry.
"The problem is, actually, no law exist to control this product" ( in canada of course)
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Sauron
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Thiodiglycol is not the main way to make mustard, nor is mustard the only vesicant, or even the most powerful one. The West now demonizes thiodiglycol
simply because it was the starting material of choice for Iran and Iraq in the 1980s.
Anyway it is easily made by well known methods thoroughly documented in the literature from much more ubiquitous and uncontrolled materials.
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chief
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@Sauron: And I thought that Saddam got his chem-weapons from some US-companies ... ; finally he was a little brother at that time ...
Besides: Whatfor sarine ? Should be good enough just to catch the 10000 flies from the garbage can (using the vacuum-cleaner) and let them free in the
local townhall or some police-station: No judge would give you any punishment for that (except if you unleash the flies in the courthouse)  , and the bimbos also wouldn't get any reason to do anything ... ; shame would be
upon them ( where it belongs most of the time ...).
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chemrox
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it's a wonder that gardeners can still get certain euphorbias
"When you let the dumbasses vote you end up with populism followed by autocracy and getting back is a bitch." Plato (sort of)
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Sauron
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chief, between them Iran and Iraq in a brief period in the 1980s bought up the entire production capacity of the US, EU and Japan for thiodiglycol for
a number of years (based on the normal pattern of consumption of that compound by its legitimate endusers in the printing and textile industries.)
When they could no longer buy the stuff they started making their own from 2-chloroethanol. When that dried up they started making it from ethylene
glycol.
Why they insisted on using the archaic "German" method rather than the far more efficient Anglo-American method from ethylene and sulfur chloride is
a mystery, Ask Chemical Ali before he hangs.
In WWI by the end of the war the US and UK were producing H mustard in 10 times the rate of Germany and at 1/10th the cost.
The Germans were using thiodiglycol and a variety of chlorinating agents. The Allies were using ethylene and sulfur chloride. The Allied agent was a
sludge containing a variety of compounds, but was more potent than HD pure mustard. To this day no one knows exactly what was in that sludge, although
one could make some excellent guesses.
This lessonwas completely lost on Iraq and Iran. This despite their vast supplies of ethylene.
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ScienceSquirrel
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I think that they were just not capable of carrying out the reaction of ethylene and sulphur chloride safely on an industrial scale.
So they stuck to liquid reactions at STP using a modified pesticide plant.
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Sauron
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That's very glib. What makes you think that the Levinstein process is conducted at anything but STP? Both countries are in the petrochemical business
in a big way and the production of chemical agents was not on a niggardly scale. So again I say, it's a mystery who they had to loot the world supply
of thiodihlycol when they had and still have ethylene, they had and still have access to sea water for Cl2 production and they presumably either have
or can obtain sulfur in bulk without difficulty.
IIRC the Levinsteil process requires temperature control but otherwise is just a matter of percolating the olefin into the sulfir chloride. It is not
a pressure reaction. I am no process engineer, but I do not see a huge difference in difficulty.
Go figure!
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Ketone
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Quote: Originally posted by vassili78  | Pretty big mistake for a government document. They don't verify what they write.
Sarin from ball-point ink is a very scary thing. |
That's probably the whole point.. governments like to scare us "subjects", thinking that we'll all come running for their "protection".
They know the general public don't know no chemistry at all, or atleast certainly not enough to prove them wrong..
And whoever who publicly tried would probably only get met with comments like
"And how would you know? Are you an expert on poison manufacture? Are you a terrorist?" etc
In short, this "sarin from ink" sounds like nothing but the usual government fearmongering to me.
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The_Davster
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I wonder how wise it would be to email them telling them they are mistaken, and that it is sulfur mustard that can be made with it?  
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Sauron
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Canadian Intelligence: an Oxymoron
Let them wallow in their mis- or dis-imformation.
[Edited on 25-4-2009 by Sauron]
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