40 years ago when I built my house, CCA Wood was very common. I used it for many landscaping and patio projects. Since they were outside exposure to arsine if it was generated would have been remote. Easy enough to test with a arsine detector. Where they have detected arsine is battery charging stations. Lead anodes typically have arsenic as an impurity. The atomic hydrogen will react and form arsine during charging. There have been cases of arsine poisonings in submarines due to poor ventilation
Arsine exposures indoors however was likely. It was known as the rich peoples problem. The rich could afford wallpaper some of which was printed with copper arsenide (green). Since the homes were likely to be damp the microbes reacted the arsenides to arsine exposing the inhabitants to low levels.
Eugene Ngai
Chemically Speaking LLC
www.chemicallyspeakingllc.com
From: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU> On Behalf Of Daniel Kuespert
Sent: Thursday, March 10, 2022 6:05 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (7 articles)
Frederick County is the next one over from my house. The high-schooler is being criminally charged, I'm not entirely sure what with, given that the only actual concrete thing he did was bring a bottle of bleach to school in his backpack.
I imagine Frederick County is a bit sensitized to unconventional weapons because of its history with Fort Detrick, which was the center of the US offensive biological weapons program (abandoned during the Nixon administration). There's a few buildings at Detrick that they haven't torn down because they can't think of an effective way to decontaminate them.
Back on the topic of arsenic, I was asked an interesting question by a member of the public recently: Can working preserved wood treated with copper chromated arsenate (CCA) with power tools create arsine at low levels?
The questioner was interested because her husband, a carpenter, had frequently worked with CCA wood and had died of cancer apparently consistent with arsenic exposure. I had to say, theoretically yes, since you're putting energy into the system and creating smoke with who-knows-what in it, but the only real way to tell would be to do monitoring. I couldn't find any literature on the subject.
Given that CCA wood on construction sites was often so fresh that it was still wet, I'd be more concerned about skin absorption, but as a point of interest, does anyone know if there might be arsine in the smoke?
Dan
-------------------------------------------------
Daniel Kuespert, PhD, CSP
Member, American Chemical Society (ACS)
Member, ACS Division of Chemical Health & Safety (CHAS)
Associate, CCS, 2021-2022
This is an excellent article on chemical security at universities.
As a manufacturer and supplier of many highly toxic, reactive or unstable compressed gases world wide we had to scramble when CFATs first came out. Arsine was the only Tier 1 chemical we supplied, we had many Tier 2. In our assessment we were very vulnerable at Universities. Someone could easily walk off with a small cylinder of arsine. If someone were to steal cylinders of arsine, or intentionally release the gas into the air, the press coverage would cause great concern and fear in the population. The psychological threat to the public is extremely high as evidenced by the following 2 incidents
- 2012 Technical University of Dresden. A freshman chemistry lab experiment failed and as the students were standing around someone mentioned they smelled garlic. A student stated that that's what arsine smells like. There was mass panic and 97 students thought they were exposed and were transported to the hospital. There was no arsine in the laboratory
- In July 2001 I flew to Tulsa to lead the investigation into a release of 65 lbs of arsine. A hundred people from facilities surrounding the site went to the hospital for arsine poisoning. None had any arsenic in their blood. The most likely person to have been exposed was an employee who evacuated by running through the colorless cloud of arsine, he also came back negative. The class action suit went on for 5 years, hundreds of people claimed they were "exposed". I was deposed many times for these suits.
The following scenario we considered to be a likely one, someone releases arsine in an office building. Most office building HVAC recirculate some of the air so the system would distribute the arsine throughout the building. The odor is not unpleasant and someone could quickly be overdosed. There is no immediate pain or symptoms that would indicate exposure. 15 to 30 minutes later the person's urine would turn red due to the kidney trying to eliminate destroyed red blood cells. If the dose is high enough they will develop abdominal pain and may suffer renal failure. Nausea, fever and diarrhea will also occur an hour or 2 later. How many medical doctors know about arsine and how to treat exposures? The only treatment is whole blood transfusion. Think of the panic of the other residents in that building. They would overwhelm the medical facilities in the area. Then the question would be, will that terrorist do it again and where?
Stealing arsine became an even bigger concern when they found a Taliban notebook with a recipe on how to make arsine and mustard gases. Why make it if it can be stolen?
This was last week in Maryland. Frederick County Sheriff's Office said a 14-year-old Urbana High School student watched a TikTok video on how to make mustard gas, then shared it on Snapchat, indicating that he planned to make mustard gas at school, news outlets report.
Dang, I hope they don't ignore the art and theater departments. I still see printmaking departments with supplies of potassium or sodium chlorate. Or metal working, powdered pigments, and 3D printer storage areas with aluminum powders and other metal powders that can be used in bomb-making. Most good-sized theater departments have a arms room and a magazine full of pyro, some of it expired. Monona
IDENTIFYING UNIVERSITY CHEMICALS THAT POSE SECURITY RISKS: A SIMPLE QUALITATIVE APPROACH
Tags: laboratory, discovery, environmental
Various laboratory-focused tools and methodologies for completing a safety risk assessment have been published, yet few similar resources to address chemical security exist. Herein, we describe a chemical security risk assessment case study at a university in a developing country. In this case study, we demonstrate a chemical security risk assessment for a university chemistry department, using an original inventory of 645 entries which was condensed to 295 chemicals after removing duplicates and erroneous entries. We then prioritized to highlight 83 chemicals of interest based on hazardous or dual-use properties that could lead to unacceptable consequences. We further refined to a list of 34 high-risk chemicals that required action, 48 chemicals that may need further justification and consideration for additional protection, and 1 chemical that did not need further consideration for additional protection.
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To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**Princeton.EDU
Sent: Wed, Mar 9, 2022 6:35 am
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Chemical Safety headlines (7 articles)
Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, March 9, 2022 at 6:35:14 AM
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