Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

I can dig it.

PC LOAD LETTER: Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

I don't want no damn hippie touching my corpse. Give me good old American fire.

New '[soylent] green cremation' machine opens in Minnesota

Heh

It uses potassium hydroxide, which is not the same as hydrogen peroxide, and subby is a dumbass.

Likes the idea.

cretinbob: miss diminutive: Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for a proportion of airborne mercury emissions worldwide.

Interesting, I had no idea.

Why are we still using mercury fillings in the first place? The negative health effects are pretty well understood at this point.

because this

Your dentist is behind the times. More and more are using composite fillings because they react more like teeth to heat than metals do.

Does the powder have a million and one uses?

cretinbob
PC LOAD LETTER: Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

Well, that's certainly nice for it.
And speaking of things that aren't other things:
an hydroxide isn't a peroxide.

/ yes, both have an ox in it
// might not be the only oxen

The Voice of Doom: cretinbob
PC LOAD LETTER: Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

Well, that's certainly nice for it.
And speaking of things that aren't other things:
an hydroxide isn't a peroxide.

/ yes, both have an ox in it
// might not be the only oxen

I see they fixed the headline.

I'm in, but only if my remains can be divided up and auctioned off, like the Ferengi.

marcpen
It uses potassium hydroxide, which is not the same as hydrogen peroxide, and subby is a dumbass


cretinbob
And after reading the article, it's not even hydrogen peroxide
//everyone point at submitter and laugh

And speaking of pointing and laughing at people, I'll join the submitter until someone can explain what the ridicule and the talk about (hydrogen) peroxide is about - especially since IIRC the pH of hydrogen peroxide solutions is lower than that of water which would make it an acid which in turn would make a pun about it and things being "pretty basic" a bit strange...

PC LOAD LETTER
I see they fixed the headline.

Ah, I see an explanation. :)

LovingTeacher: Walter White's HF method works better, no skeleton (or bathtub) left after that

In a realistic sense, no it isn't.

1. HF is (relatively) hard to get, NaOH (or KOH) is easy to get
2. HF comes as a solution, hard to transport and store. NaOH (or KOH) comes as a dry powder.
3. Spill some NaOH on your hands and you'll say, "I feel slippery" maybe even "I feel a little itchy". Spill some HF on your hands and you'll say, "Owwww, this is the worst pain imaginable. Oh god make it stop".
4. NaOH is much easier to dispose of safely and without detecton

RogermcAllen
3. Spill some NaOH on your hands and you'll say, "I feel slippery" maybe even "I feel a little itchy".

or maybe even scream in pain when the NaOH dissolves (on) your sweaty hands.

After all they're using it to dissolve bodies..

StreetlightInTheGhetto: Does the powder have a million and one uses?

Refresher
Mascara
Food for heads in jars (most likely fish as well)
Spice
Explosive
Explosive neutralizer
Tablets
Flea powder
Suppositories
Dishwashing liquid (possibly).

The Voice of Doom: RogermcAllen
3. Spill some NaOH on your hands and you'll say, "I feel slippery" maybe even "I feel a little itchy".

or maybe even scream in pain when the NaOH dissolves (on) your sweaty hands.

After all they're using it to dissolve bodies..

Caustic doesn't really work that way. As long as you take a few precautions (have a buffer solution or running water to rinse with), there is no reason that you can't quickly and relatively painlessly wash off a caustic spill. Worst case scenario, you get a few drops on you that you don't notice leaving a hole in your shirt and a local burn.

HF is a contact poison that pretty much instantly soaks into your skin. A few unnoticed drops can kill you.

From WIKI:
"Hydrofluoric acid is a highly corrosive liquid and is a contact poison. It should be handled with extreme care, beyond that accorded to other mineral acids. Owing to its low dissociation constant, HF as a neutral lipid-soluble molecule penetrates tissue more rapidly than typical mineral acids. Because of the ability of hydrofluoric acid to penetrate tissue, poisoning can occur readily through exposure of skin or eyes, or when inhaled or swallowed. Symptoms of exposure to hydrofluoric acid may not be immediately evident. HF interferes with nerve function, meaning that burns may not initially be painful. Accidental exposures can go unnoticed, delaying treatment and increasing the extent and seriousness of the injury.[8]

Once absorbed into blood through the skin, it reacts with blood calcium and may cause cardiac arrest. Burns with areas larger than 25 square inches (160 cm2) have the potential to cause serious systemic toxicity from interference with blood and tissue calcium levels.[9] In the body, hydrofluoric acid reacts with the ubiquitous biologically important ions Ca2+ and Mg2+. Formation of insoluble calcium fluoride is proposed as the etiology for both precipitous fall in serum calcium and the severe pain associated with tissue toxicity.[10] In some cases, exposures can lead to hypocalcemia. Thus, hydrofluoric acid exposure is often treated with calcium gluconate, a source of Ca2+ that sequesters the fluoride ions. HF chemical burns can be treated with a water wash and 2.5% calcium gluconate gel.[11][12][13] or special rinsing solutions.[14][15] However, because it is absorbed, medical treatment is necessary;[9] rinsing off is not enough. Intra-arterial infusions of calcium chloride have also shown great effectiveness in treating burns.[16]"

PC LOAD LETTER: Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

KOH is a base.

unlikely: PC LOAD LETTER: Peroxide is a free radical, not a base

KOH is a base.

Ahhh, reading more thread I see that the headline was different and they fixed it. Apologies.

miss diminutive: Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for a proportion of airborne mercury emissions worldwide.

Interesting, I had no idea.

Why are we still using mercury fillings in the first place? The negative health effects are pretty well understood at this point.

There is more mercury released in forest fires from it being absorbed by trees from the air. Blaming fillings is like blaming significant ozone depletion on asthma inhaler propellants.

Sounds like a Faux News or Daily Fail story.

Mija: miss diminutive: Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for a proportion of airborne mercury emissions worldwide.

Interesting, I had no idea.

Why are we still using mercury fillings in the first place? The negative health effects are pretty well understood at this point.

Yes, mercury is a poison. People still defend it's use in vaccines against all reason. Funny, how they are conditioned to accept their children being injected with known poisons but think it's oh so awful in every other respect.

Small pox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella can kill you. The amount of mercury present in vaccines is less than you get if you eat fish and shellfish on a regular basis.

FloydA: Mija: miss diminutive: Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for a proportion of airborne mercury emissions worldwide.

Interesting, I had no idea.

Why are we still using mercury fillings in the first place? The negative health effects are pretty well understood at this point.

Yes, mercury is a poison. People still defend it's use in vaccines against all reason. Funny, how they are conditioned to accept their children being injected with known poisons but think it's oh so awful in every other respect.

Small pox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella can kill you. The amount of mercury present in vaccines is less than you get if you eat fish and shellfish on a regular basis.

Your fish example is a good one. Fish are full of methylmercury and dimethylmercury, both of which bioaccumulate (stay in you for a long time) and cause serious damage.

The ethylmercury used in vaccines quickly leaves the body.

I get it. The stuff dissolves tissue and organs, leaving behind bones and foreign, metallic objects. Then, it reduces the bones to sludge which can be dried into a powder.

My question is, where does all of the 'people juice' go when the stuff is done? You know, dissolved tissue.

Run through filters, scraped off as a goo, then dried and mixed with the bone powder? Dumped into the local sewer?

Incineration/cremation by heat vaporizes most tissues, reduces the rest to ash and does the same to the majority of the bones. (A handy dandy machine takes care of those chunks which remain, like teeth, by grinding them into powder.) Metallic remains are supposed to be picked out and, if valuable metals, returned to the survivors. If not, then scrapped.

Mercury still used in dental fillings is odd, since we do have assorted new polymers that can replace the old, precious metal-type stuff.

Then again, gold miners in places like South America use tons of mercury to capture gold fragments in sluice boxes. They get an amalgam of gold and mercury, then they burn the mercury off, leaving the gold. Easy as pie. However, eventually deadly to every miner involved and everything else within a dozen square miles, and even further as the vaporized mercury precipitates out of the air and descends into the rivers, wet lands and jungles, where it is absorbed by nearly everything that lives.

We still have major problems in logging areas of the US where vast amounts of mercury was used as a debarking agent in saw mills. The residual settled to the bottom of nearby lakes and in some cases, can be found in thick layers under the mud today.

Rik01: Dumped into the local sewer?

This one. They neutralize the caustic and send everything to the waste treatment plant.

/At least that's how they did it when I read about them doing this in Florida a few years back

Ishidan
HF is, by far and away, the sneakiest bastard in the caustics cabinet that I know of.

I don't doubt that it's worse.
I was just doing a "kids, don't do that at home" bit with regards to the part that NaOH will only feel slippery or maybe itch a a little when even its wikipedia entry includes a nice little picture why it's sometimes recommended to put on goggles and gloves when handling it.


I believe there even was a glass of NaOH tablets in the low-(safety-)level chemistry set for children which I got when I was a bit jealous because my older brother was doing some cool stuff with a really big set for teenagers and also some Greepeace set (basically just another chemistry set, but the chemicals and the experiment book were more geared towards analyzing stuff; I remember us testing some pieces of furniture around the house for formaldehyde and during a vacation samples of river and sea water for..whatever)

MasterPython: FloydA: Mija: miss diminutive: Mercury from amalgam vaporised in crematoria is blamed for a proportion of airborne mercury emissions worldwide.

Interesting, I had no idea.

Why are we still using mercury fillings in the first place? The negative health effects are pretty well understood at this point.

Yes, mercury is a poison. People still defend it's use in vaccines against all reason. Funny, how they are conditioned to accept their children being injected with known poisons but think it's oh so awful in every other respect.

Small pox, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, measles, mumps and rubella can kill you. The amount of mercury present in vaccines is less than you get if you eat fish and shellfish on a regular basis.

The amount of mercury in all vaccines but the flu shot is zero and has been for decades.

Well A decade. But yes. point taken. Thimerosal is still used as a preservative in inactivated influenza vaccine, but the CDC and FDA have been making efforts to remove mercury-based preservatives from all vaccines.

In any case, the "anti-vaxers" are crazy people, obsessed with a non-issue.

Strong chemicals are environmental hazards, too. A nice green way to dispose of the dead only requires a few dermestid beetles: