Near Miss with unusual chemical

[Voryon]

I wanted to share an accident that happend to me. Luckily I wasnt hurt as I was following basic rules when dealing with new mixtures (PPE, small amount, outside, slow). I ground some copper nitrate trihydrate and mixed it with fine MgAl powder by shaking it together in a container. The total amount of the Mix was about 5g. I then let it sit a few seconds and when I picked it up again, within half a second it burst into bright Flames, I threw it instinctively on the ground and was luckily completely unhurt. I was wearing gloves, safety glasses and long sleeves and jeans. Afterwards I found black staines on the gloves, so I know they prevented me from some burns! Even though I was reading through available MSDS I could not find spontaneous combustion as potential Hazard. I share this experience so that nobody has to make this Experience again!

 

Stay safe!

 

V

Edited February 12, 2018 by Voryon

[NeighborJ]

Glad you weren't hurt. Pretty much all water soluble copper compounds react exothermicaly with other reactive metals, especially when moisture is involved.

[rogeryermaw]

that reactivity is holding back a lot of my experimentation.

[Voryon]

If this experience keeps someone from being hurt I am very glad that could share it without being hurt! If needed, one can try to repeat it but with the knowledge of what will happend. I am sure this would help against the feeling of lost Experiments, sure this is no Recommendation. Now it seems to be very obvious why this chem is not used in modern pyrotechnics.

[Sulphurstan]

I've read somewhere that copper compounds are prone to react with other chemicals. Except for copper oxyde, i generally beware of copper molecules...

[Mumbles]

Soluble copper compounds react with many metals we use as fuels in pyrotechnics. They tend to be fairly corrosive materials. There are also additional handling and reactivity concerns with certain other compounds like acetylene, ammonia and amines and a few others.