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Author: Subject: A Call to Action: Removing Hydrogen Peroxide from the Dept. of Homeland Security's List of Scheduled Chemicals.
entropy51
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[*] posted on 28-3-2012 at 13:07


Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
I assure you, the chemists that work in this field for the government are not stupid.
I have to laugh every time I see a reference to "stupid bureaucrats" used in reference to some law or regulation that people here do not like or understand.

Apparently people think that government regulators are all C- English majors, or maybe just illiterate political hacks.

I have worked with and know a lot of the scientific staff of agencies such as DEA, ATF, DHS, FDA, NIST and NIH.

Not one of them is stupid.
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 29-3-2012 at 18:37


Quote: Originally posted by entropy51  
Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
I assure you, the chemists that work in this field for the government are not stupid.
I have to laugh every time I see a reference to "stupid bureaucrats" used in reference to some law or regulation that people here do not like or understand.

Apparently people think that government regulators are all C- English majors, or maybe just illiterate political hacks.

I have worked with and know a lot of the scientific staff of agencies such as DEA, ATF, DHS, FDA, NIST and NIH.

Not one of them is stupid.


The bureaucrats aren't stupid. The legislators, on the other hand...

Jesting aside, many Congressmen at the state and federal level are scientifically illiterate. Bureaucrats with scientific expertise can finesse the execution of the law, but they can't flat-out contradict it.

Now, make no mistake, I'm not saying the bulk of the government is stupid. What I am saying, though, is that it is MASSIVE and the Law of Large Numbers all but guarantees that ill-advised measures will emit from it in a small but intense trickle.

Yes, the internet is full of people screaming "fuck the police," "that man is a fascist pig," "I'm not saying it was aliens, but it was aliens," "POLICE STATE!," "Weed was banned because Hearst," "take our guns," and "sacrifice personal liberty... temporary security... deserves neither...," and it collectively boasts enough Reynolds Wrap to block Arecibo. I get as tired of it as anyone else not infected by the hysteria, but none of that changes the ridiculously low probability of the currently established 'concentration of interest' for hydrogen peroxide actually serving to prevent or punish a crime.

Now, regarding the counterexample of the 'chiller truck' scenario: It IS interesting that there is at least a theoretical plan of attack that could utilize peroxides as a main charge. I hadn't thought of refrigerating the entire truck.

I'm interested to know a few things about the practical implementation of such a plan.

How would they neutralize and dry the product? With such a large mass, I would never remove any of the liquid until the pH was exactly 7, and if the liquid isn't at least partially removed, the explosive charge is all but useless.

They couldn't decant the water and dry the charge while on-site, so they would still have to drive a truck loaded with an extremely sensitive primary explosive. Yes, keeping it cold and in the dark makes many peroxides much safer to handle, but there's still the problem of the mass of crystals shifting against each other with each movement of the truck.

Yes, there's a chance it could work. Yes, that chance is higher than for filling up the back of a U-Haul with peroxide slurry as each 2kg kitchen batch is cranked out by some nut. But it still strikes me as unwieldy and unfeasible.

[Edited on 30-3-2012 by killswitch]
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[*] posted on 30-3-2012 at 09:41


Perhaps the vision of Mr Zazi in Colorado pushing a shopping cart full of beauty shop grade (12-24%) H2O2 down the isle is stuck in the minds of the regulators.




The single most important condition for a successful synthesis is good mixing - Nicodem
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 30-3-2012 at 10:12


Quote: Originally posted by Magpie  
Perhaps the vision of Mr Zazi in Colorado pushing a shopping cart full of beauty shop grade (12-24%) H2O2 down the isle is stuck in the minds of the regulators.


That's below both the threshold both in concentration and quantity.
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[*] posted on 31-3-2012 at 14:51


Quote: Originally posted by killswitch  
Now, regarding the counterexample of the 'chiller truck' scenario: It IS interesting that there is at least a theoretical plan of attack that could utilize peroxides as a main charge. I hadn't thought of refrigerating the entire truck.

I'm interested to know a few things about the practical implementation of such a plan.

How would they neutralize and dry the product? With such a large mass, I would never remove any of the liquid until the pH was exactly 7, and if the liquid isn't at least partially removed, the explosive charge is all but useless.
First, you wouldn't cool the whole truck but rather repurpose the coolant loop to act as a chiller for the exothermic synthesis. This could be done by any qualified commercial refrigeration technician. Reaction rate is limited by the ability to remove heat from the reaction vessel (a drum, presumably), and the chiller in a reefer truck would provide plenty of that.

Neutralization. Don't bother. That's a concern for storage stability.

Liquid removal. Put a mesh filter drain in the bottom of each reaction drum. Drain off the bulk of the liquid, either under gravity or suction. Use a vacuum pump to pull off the rest in vapor form; you can do this at the very end.

A typical reefer truck in the US is 53 feet, 1/3 longer than a standard 40 foot shipping container. It seems fully feasible that you could get a 30 - 40% fill rate after two days of work. It's a comparable size charge to the Oklahoma City bomb.
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 5-4-2012 at 09:40


Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
First, you wouldn't cool the whole truck but rather repurpose the coolant loop to act as a chiller for the exothermic synthesis. This could be done by any qualified commercial refrigeration technician. Reaction rate is limited by the ability to remove heat from the reaction vessel (a drum, presumably), and the chiller in a reefer truck would provide plenty of that.

Liquid removal. Put a mesh filter drain in the bottom of each reaction drum. Drain off the bulk of the liquid, either under gravity or suction. Use a vacuum pump to pull off the rest in vapor form; you can do this at the very end.

A typical reefer truck in the US is 53 feet, 1/3 longer than a standard 40 foot shipping container. It seems fully feasible that you could get a 30 - 40% fill rate after two days of work. It's a comparable size charge to the Oklahoma City bomb.


There's still the issue of sensitivity. It would take, by that estimate, at least a week, total, to reconfigure the truck and synthesize the charge. And this strikes me as beyond the capabilities of a single individual, given the sheer size of the quantities involved. In fact, McVeigh would have been physically incapable of constructing his bomb without the assistance of at least one other person (and many experts believe that Nichols alone wouldn't have been enough to grind up the prills AND load the truck within the timetable given). Now that we have a black president, white supremacist militias are under much heavier surveillance now than they were then, and many mosques across the country are also under FBI surveillance (rather prejudiced, but sadly true). The Oslo bomb didn't use any significant quantities of explosives that required any kind of chemical synthesis, just mixing the ingredients. Given that NH4NO3 is much more heavily restricted in the States, Breivik's plan would not have succeeded in the United States. An even more complicated plan would have required more than one person for any realistic chance of success.

So, while I admire the ingenuity of the plan you've posited (which I never would have thought of myself), the ability of criminals to employ it in an act of terrorism appears somewhat dubious. And I would hazard a guess that such a plan would be far, far more expensive to implement than the OKC bombing, which cost only $5,000 for the charge and detonator. I simply don't see any way other than theft to accomplish a peroxide-based plot. And the theft of chemical substances in any real quantity is nearly guaranteed to trigger a far higher degree of response from law enforcement than almost any other kind of theft, other than robbing an armored car.

[Edited on 5-4-2012 by killswitch]
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[*] posted on 5-4-2012 at 14:14


Quote: Originally posted by killswitch  
And this strikes me as beyond the capabilities of a single individual, given the sheer size of the quantities involved.
I agree, this is not a single-person operation.

Nevertheless, it's plausible, in the light of this scenario, that there's a rational regulation involving drum-sized quantities of H2O2. And that, finally, was the purpose of the example, to show that it need not be pure paranoia on the part of regulators to do what they did.
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 5-4-2012 at 14:35


Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
Quote: Originally posted by killswitch  
And this strikes me as beyond the capabilities of a single individual, given the sheer size of the quantities involved.
I agree, this is not a single-person operation.

Nevertheless, it's plausible, in the light of this scenario, that there's a rational regulation involving drum-sized quantities of H2O2. And that, finally, was the purpose of the example, to show that it need not be pure paranoia on the part of regulators to do what they did.


I'm not sure that this scenario occurred to them when they wrote the legislation, though. After all, they outright admit that it took lobbying on behalf of industry representatives to convince them not to put acetone and urea on the Scheduled Chemicals List. And they still don't address the fact that sodium percarbonate can be used as a precursor instead of aqueous hydrogen peroxide, sidestepping the restriction entirely.

[Edited on 5-4-2012 by killswitch]
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[*] posted on 7-4-2012 at 22:25


It would make more sense to try and remover the regulation of phosphorus and iodine
on the grounds that they are elements, naturally occurring and made by God or some or some other such nonsense. Besides it should be enough to just regulate the pseudoephedrine.

There are probably simpler ways to make high explosives from the higher concentrations of H2O2 than was outlined earlier but I won't give any hints.
The whole discussion is academic since the regulators won't listen to
any of us on this.
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 2-6-2012 at 09:41


Quote: Originally posted by gregxy  
It would make more sense to try and remove the regulation of phosphorus and iodine
on the grounds that they are elements, naturally occurring and made by God or some or some other such nonsense. Besides it should be enough to just regulate the pseudoephedrine.

There are probably simpler ways to make high explosives from the higher concentrations of H2O2 than was outlined earlier but I won't give any hints.
The whole discussion is academic since the regulators won't listen to any of us on this.


Wait, what? Was this post supposed to be in the other thread?

Nevertheless, if you want as simple as possible, just grind up pool chlorine tablets (70+% Ca(OCl)2) as finely as possible with some power tools and mix it very evenly with finely powdered baking sugar, cram it into an aluminum tube, wipe off the threads, and screw on the endcaps. Pow!

Actually, don't do that. I get the feeling hypochlorites are even more dangerous than chlorates.
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[*] posted on 2-6-2012 at 16:55


If someone wanted H2O2, all it would take if find a drop yard with tankers on it. Can you say 50,000lbs. of peroxide? I've seen loads of this running up and down the roads. I wonder what industry needs THAT large a quantity?
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[*] posted on 8-12-2012 at 19:56


Quote: Originally posted by hyfalcon  
If someone wanted H2O2, all it would take if find a drop yard with tankers on it. Can you say 50,000lbs. of peroxide? I've seen loads of this running up and down the roads. I wonder what industry needs THAT large a quantity?



Hydrogen peroxide is widely employed in the food industry and elsewhere.
I kills everything, leaves no contamination and can be flushed in to the normal drainage system.
What is there not to like?
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[*] posted on 8-12-2012 at 20:12


and liquid rocket oxidizer ! although not so much anymore..

[Edited on 9-12-2012 by neptunium]




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[*] posted on 30-12-2012 at 21:23


I see this issue paralleling the gun control controversy. The arguments, for and against, are essentially the same.
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[*] posted on 7-5-2013 at 15:50


Quote: Originally posted by killswitch  
Quote: Originally posted by weiming1998  
Quote: Originally posted by Bot0nist  
Quote:
Mass production of TATP or HMTD is a non-starter, as they cannot be used as a main charge. It's the guy who shoplifts one or two bottles each from a Walgreens, a CVS, a Target, and a Wal-Mart and jams them in the freezer to make 5+ grams of material that is the real issue.


Retoric like that would be excellent to enact further legislation of H<sub>2</sub>O<sub>2</sub> to encompass the readily available 3% variety.


Probably not. 3% H2O2 is used to clean wounds, dye hair, and other uses. Even if they will ignore these uses, the banning of all hydrogen peroxide will spark an outrage in the "alt med" community, as some of them drink diluted hydrogen peroxide as a way to "oxygenate" their blood and detoxify themselves. Others think that H2O2 and baking soda is the universal cleaner and sodium percarbonate cannot replace it.
As the H2O2 therapy supporters are extremely numerous, far more in number than amateur chemists or people that etch circuit boards, plus they are a group of people that thinks that the government is hiding the miracle from us. If the government bans H2O2, they will start conspiracy theory websites everywhere on the net, and even in real life, maybe even protests. The government simply cannot ever risk to get a massive group of people saying that they are evil, and possibly reduce the amount of people that takes vaccines to a very small amount (if government is so evil it bans the cure all H2O2, then they are lying about vaccines and they really do cause autism!), reducing the numbers below herd immunity and possibly start an epidemic. Even if that doesn't happen, they still don't want protesters going everywhere and the amount of people taking conventional medicine to decrease.

Edit: Just Google "H2O2 therapy" if you don't believe me.

[Edited on 27-3-2012 by weiming1998]


Ehh... that's a little tinfoil-hatty for most people's tastes, and most alt-med stuff is bullshit. The simple truth is that the government CAN'T ban hydrogen peroxide in its totality. Could you imagine trying to ban hair bleach? Carpet cleaner? Tooth-whitening mouthwash formulas? It'd be ridiculous.

The simple truth: The only place TATP manufacture could be completely prohibited is in a place like North Korea.


Hey man I would really like to see your evidence that all these alt meds dont work as I have been studying the oil industry lately and have spotted an extremely negative pattern, and when you saying most alt-med is bs is a little worrying but if you have evidence that shows me a different view point I would really love to see it.

if you want to make a bomb there are only 2 ingredients you need and ones kerosine they have not banned this because of ingredients in a bomb,
as far as I can see they have banned it because its good for you h202 is formed up in the stratosphere and used to be delivered to us through rainfall but because of all the chemicals being sprayed it now doesn't reach the ground or get into our diet so they now have to add it in,

diluted food grade 35% hydrogen peroxide is as far as i can see fantastic for you allegedly helping the body fight an array of diseases including cancer and this websites claim http://educate-yourself.org/hp/index.shtml goes against what your saying.
FIRST look into the basic science of MMS as your primary at-home oxidative therapy because it's gaining a reputation for CURING just about every disease condition in the book, from 4th stage cancer to AIDS, to diabetes, to malaria, etc.

so killlswitch where is your studying that h202 doesn't do these things and alt medicine is bs, what do you base your theories on as I for one like to be educated and someone who has obviously studied this is far more beneficial to me than someone who just states these things on a website?

There are currently 10 patents pending on lemon juice which is really good for depression if all alt-meds are rubbish why do they base all of the medicines on plants and natural extracts?





[Edited on 8-5-2013 by jinni73]
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killswitch
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[*] posted on 1-6-2013 at 05:33


Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland  
I see this issue paralleling the gun control controversy. The arguments, for and against, are essentially the same.


Nope. H2O2 requires one knows what they are doing chemistry-wise to cause harm, and there is no commercial support for any aspect of the process beyond purchasing raw materials.

Classifying H2O2 as a 'watched chemical' is like requiring registration and background checks for pressure cookers or propane tanks.
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[*] posted on 8-6-2013 at 09:19


I use 35 percent hydrogen peroxide to remove iron from my water. It's way too expensive to use 3 or 8 percent solution. It costs me 120 bucks for six gallons of 35 percent solution. It's 70 bucks for 5 gallons of 8 percent solution. do the math.

It'd be nice to buy a 55 gallon drum, but I couldn't find anyone to sell it to me.

I buy my peroxide from one of the suppliers selling h2o2 for drinking. I forget what health benefits they suggest it has. It's nonsense, but they're cheap.
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[*] posted on 8-6-2013 at 11:21


Quote: Originally posted by killswitch  
Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland  
I see this issue paralleling the gun control controversy. The arguments, for and against, are essentially the same.


Nope. H2O2 requires one knows what they are doing chemistry-wise to cause harm, and there is no commercial support for any aspect of the process beyond purchasing raw materials.

Classifying H2O2 as a 'watched chemical' is like requiring registration and background checks for pressure cookers or propane tanks.



Especially since you can go in most pool supply stores and buy 27% Bauqucil H2O2 all day long and nothing is thought about it.
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[*] posted on 7-11-2013 at 08:09
Tiny amounts of 35% food-grade H2O2!


A friend just called me and reported her shock and amazement that she was unable to order an EIGHT OUNCE bottle of 35% food-grade H2O2 because she does not possess a fixed residential address. For over 35 years, she has used a private mailing center where she must sign for all packages. She lives in a motor home and travels a lot.



-- MC
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[*] posted on 7-11-2013 at 09:06


Quote: Originally posted by entropy51  
Quote: Originally posted by watson.fawkes  
I assure you, the chemists that work in this field for the government are not stupid.
I have to laugh every time I see a reference to "stupid bureaucrats" used in reference to some law or regulation that people here do not like or understand.

Apparently people think that government regulators are all C- English majors, or maybe just illiterate political hacks.

I have worked with and know a lot of the scientific staff of agencies such as DEA, ATF, DHS, FDA, NIST and NIH.

Not one of them is stupid.


No they are NOT stupid! Furthermore, their administrative "betters" are not stupid, they are intelligent, clever, arrogant and morally dysfunctional -- and therein lies the true horror of what is happening to America. The political level bureaucrats who command these highly trained and mostly harmless lab drones are engaged in an accelerating campaign to strip harmless Americans of every vestige of real control over their own destiny. With rare and precious exceptions, this is nothing more than part of a multi-tentacled agenda -- one that was clearly and accurately described by the Cloward-Piven plan. No, I am not a "conspiracy theorist". I am a life-long student of human history -- a history that, among many other facts, proves that human beings are conspiratorial by their very nature.

[Edited on 7-11-2013 by MPCato]

[Edited on 7-11-2013 by MPCato]




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[*] posted on 7-11-2013 at 09:18


Quote: Originally posted by AndersHoveland  
I see this issue paralleling the gun control controversy. The arguments, for and against, are essentially the same.


Indeed! Every single one of the "arguments" offered by those who want to disarm the harmless (which is swept into the subject of this thread) are in fact better arguments for doing the exact opposite!




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[*] posted on 8-11-2013 at 00:09


@Killswitch: You've written the document and seen all the discouraging reactions from folks who are willing to accept unreasonable controls. Now, where do we go from here? How do you think we should distribute the manifesto, petition however it should be presented. How can I help?



"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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[*] posted on 13-12-2017 at 14:34


"Querying the data" on purchasing a large quantity of hydrogen peroxide. Just some perspectives maybe of interest that came up today. Starting around the 27-29 minute mark.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?438282-1/deputy-attorney-gener...
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