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Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride (2010)

PebblesRox 260 points science.org
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GarnetFloride
The Rocketdyne Tripropellant rocket had great specific impulse, one of the best. But-- there are many reasons it never caught on: one of the byproducts was FOOF, along with other things like hydrofluoric acid.
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rbanffy
Sounds OK in vacuum...
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Sharlin
If you want to actually get momentum out of a rocket, the reaction products are going to touch the combustion chamber walls and the nozzle. While film cooling can help with minimizing heat transfer from the hot stuff, I doubt it’s enough to keep this stuff from eating your engine from the inside.
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GarnetFloride
Yeah, that was one of the downsides.

They actually did build a test article and ran the engine a few times, enough to gather the data but it indeed ate the engine, and the concrete and the rocks and coated it all with explosive powder.

They did imagine coating the proposed launch complex with quartz but it quickly became obvious it was going to be way too expensive to actually build.

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shadowgovt
These modern SpaceX kids and their fancy reusables. Back in my day, when we went to space, we used the whole engine!
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rbanffy
That’s what engine-rich exhaust is for.
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Sharlin
Hmm, I wonder if anyone has tried to use ablative coatings in a rocket engine.
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Tuna-Fish
Yes, many. It's widely used on solid rocket motors, but it's considered a bad idea on liquid fuels because regenerative cooling is usually lighter, more efficient and easier to design and build. It's hard to get a rocket nozzle to ablate in such an even and consistent way that you wouldn't have to provide much larger safety margins than you'd really want to in a rocket.
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shadowgovt
Arguably, the solid rocket motor is in this vein. While I've never seen a design that consumes the outer shell, the inner material is designed to burn as completely as possible, and the chemistry and physical composition is even designed to cause the burn to happen in a proper combustion-chamber shape.
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Sharlin
Yeah, good point!
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tekla
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narag
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the8472
The line between serious proposals and shitposting is thin.

https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19700022572 https://x.com/ToughSf/status/1769958999279927787

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fweimer
Hmm, maybe it was part of NAIL SPIKE? https://reactormag.com/a-tall-tail/
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samplatt
SO happy to finally see this get mentioned in one of the yearly FOOF threads on this site <3
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khuey
The 50s and 60s were a wild time.
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stuartjohnson12
Hangzhou Sage Chemical Company. They offer it in 100g, 500g, and 1 kilo amounts, which is interesting, because I don't think a kilo of dioxygen difluoride has ever existed. Someone should call them on this - ask for the free shipping, and if they object, tell them Amazon offers it on this item. Serves 'em right. Morons.

Gold

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s0rce
Some chemical suppliers seem to have autogenerated items, some/many are non-sense and I guess they just hope that you find something and they can make it? I found the example below a while ago but they have since removed it.

https://www.nanochemazone.com/product/argon-powder/

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ahazred8ta
The argon powder is still there. Great for Apr01. https://www.nanochemazone.com/argon-powder/ -- https://web.archive.org/web/20250331192328/https://www.nanoc...
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LorenPechtel
Is argon powder actually impossible? Of course it couldn't exist as pictured but below 80K does anything prohibit it?
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s0rce
No, its not impossible. You can make it in the lab without too much difficulty if you have liquid nitrogen. Just not sold like this and you can't really contain it in a practical vessel as the pressure at room temperature would be too extreme, you store liquids or compressed gases.
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HPsquared
Off topic, but I Googled "argon powder" and the AI overview thing hallucinated that the term means metal powders used for 3D printing, stored under argon to prevent oxidation. There are no actual results using the term in that sense, as far as I can tell.

Google search should not be returning an incorrect hallucination that sounds plausible ahead of the actual search results. It's so confidently wrong. Google is SO BAD NOW at searching for specific expressions.

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leoc
Someone finding themselves obliged to make and deliver a kilo of this stuff would be a strong opening for a shounen manga.
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JoshTriplett
More likely an isekai story, for variety over the usual truck.
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IlikeKitties
Not a Chemist but reminded me about this article: https://gizmodo.com/chlorine-trifluoride-the-chemical-that-s...

Just to get the ball rolling, here’s a few of the more unusual things chlorine trifluoride is known to set fire to on contact: glass, sand, asbestos, rust, concrete, people, pyrex, cloth, and the dreams of children…
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borski
He wrote that one too, heh: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo...

It’s linked in the article

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QuesnayJr
That's a different article. The Gizmodo article has a byline of "Melissa" and apparently is originally from TodayIFoundOut.com.
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groby_b
So, might be "inspiration". I suspect "Melissa" did not "find out today" - chlorine trifluoride isn't exactly the stuff you discuss at your average dinner table.

You need a whole bunch of expertise to write about it. Gizmodo does not usually have this expertise, but its writers do usually recognize snappy writing that might go viral.

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anotherboffin
Yeah, I suspect “Melissa” fed Lowe’s article to an LLM to get a quick article that’s sure to get views.
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messe
In 2015? 2 years before "Attention Is All You Need"?
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banannaise
Ah, I miss the days when this sort of soft plagiarism required a minimal level of effort and even some genuine research. It might even rise to the level of "acceptable" if she cited her sources more thoroughly. Sadly, as presented, her choice of both anecdotes and example materials makes it pretty clear that the author is mostly just rearranging Lowe's and Clark's words.
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anotherboffin
Good point! I’ll be more careful before quick posting.
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btilly
Derek Lowe also did chlorine trifluoride: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/sand-won-t-save-yo....
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CommieBobDole
It is also hypergolic with such things as cloth, wood, and test engineers
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gmueckl
This is a quote from "Ignition!" The particular quoted passage from that book is one of the highlights of the unique ironic tone the author used to describe real and dangerous chemical research.

The book firmly establishes its tone with the first two pictures at the front: a successful rocket engine test and the remaining rubble of the same test stand after a failed test.

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banannaise
I suppose Derek's writing style is similar enough that it's easy to accidentally credit him for that line.

I have to wonder whether Clark's influence is a significant contributor to his writing style. It would be fun to ask him. They could, of course, have come to it independently.

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speed_spread
Knowing that rust can burn should make the joy of a few Linux maintainers.
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LorenPechtel
Makes me wonder if it could burn a fire elemental. :)

They seem to model any chemical damage as "acid" and fire elementals aren't immune to acid so I would be inclined to say it would.

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api
I think there's some stuff in a book called Ignition about experiments using Fluorine as an oxidizer in rocket engines to get a little better specific impulse than oxygen. Only problem is that the exhaust is hydrofluoric acid at thousands of degrees. Yipe.
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perihelions
From memory, that book went in at least four different directions with fluorine compounds. Parts are about increasing specific impulse; parts are about increasing density impulse (fluorine's very dense); parts are about formulating oxidizers hypergolic with kerosene or with hydrogen; parts are about formulating oxidizers for deep space probes, with a melting/boiling point range matched to that thermal environment.

O3F2 is the one that if you add it to liquid oxygen, it makes hydrogen/oxygen combustion hypergolic.

Direct link: (.pdf) https://library.sciencemadness.org/library/books/ignition.pd...

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api
O3F2 is the one that if you add it to liquid oxygen, it makes hydrogen/oxygen combustion hypergolic.

O3F2 sounds like it'd be hypergolic with engineers. Nope.

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baq
O3F2 sounds like it'd be hypergolic with engineers. Nope.

Engineers. Asbestos. Sand.

Can confirm 'Nope'.

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m4rtink
Its probably hypergolic even with Nope. ;-)
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wiredfool
There's also adding a bit of Flourine to one of the Fuming Nitric Acids to make it easier to handle, because of the flouridation of the surface of the tanks.
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chasd00
a book called Ignition

that book is really good and has some interesting hidden treasures, like a couple of sentences about adding silicon oil to the fuel mixture to create a self-ablating film on the combustion chamber. I think some amateur bi-prop engine guys use that in their fuel setups. It's funny how the book ends after all that research and exotic chemicals with JP-1 and liquid O2 are still pretty much the best combination.

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wiredfool
And the bit about using dimethyl mercury as a monopropellant.
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nottorp
Ignition has that lovely paragraph about some fluorine based fuel leaking out of the truck that was transporting it* and going through the road surface and then through the half a meter of concrete and stone under the asphalt, alien style.

* the only way to move that fuel was in a refrigerated cistern... at a temp so low that the steel it was made of became brittle and cracked.

I think it's quoted in one of Derek Lowe's articles about fluorine compounds too.

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api
Retcon: the Xenomorphs were a form of life based around fluorine chemistry, which provides a physically plausible mechanism for how their blood eats through anything.

Of course that breaks the idea of them incubating in humans, since their biochemistry would react explosively with ours, but that never made sense anyway.

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perihelions
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UncleSlacky
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ubermonkey
There are two kinds of popular reposts in the world.

Most are Type 1, which is "meh, this again" followed by a scroll away.

This is an excellent example of Type 2, which is "Oh boy! I get to read this again!"

(See also: the SR71 speed check story; the story of Mel, the Real Programmer; etc.)

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MaKey
I'd like to add the "We can't send mail more than 500 miles" story to that list: https://web.mit.edu/jemorris/humor/500-miles
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ubermonkey
OH, absolutely. That's another gem!
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PebblesRox
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ourmandave
Dioxygen Difluoride

That both words start with DIe! is enough to warn me off.

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Ygg2
Dihydorgen Dioxide. Oh no!
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jerf
Not the best example. Hydrogen peroxide is actually rather nasty when highly pure. I mean, it's got nothing on FOOF, not many things do, but it's still in a class where it needs to be handled with care and shouldn't be handed to non-professionals. Don't be fooled by the fact it's sold in grocery stores at low concentrations.
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Ygg2
Sure. We also call it bleach :P
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jerf
Bleach, when people refer to the general product you can buy in the grocery store called "bleach", is sodium hypochlorite, not hydrogen peroxide.

You can call hydrogen peroxide bleach, or a bleaching agent, but if you ask your significant other for "bleach" you're not going to get hydrogen peroxide.

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Ygg2
Speak for yourself, we have/had a bottle of it lying around. Used for bleaching hair and as a cleaning agent. It's not Clorox, but actually says hydrogen peroxide (low dosage though).
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shadowgovt
Not as bad as FOOF, but still burns on contact to an open sore.
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masklinn
Pure hydrogen peroxide will do a lot worse than burn on contact with an open sore, unless you mean "set your sore on fire" (though it's more likely to detonate, or spontaneously dissociate into steam and pure oxygen).

Usual solutions for disinfection are 3~5%, at 35% h2o2 will bleach skin, and bite through it.

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psunavy03
Read up on the Me-163 if you want to see the craziness that's involved with using high-purity H2O2 as an oxidizer. With a hydrazine/methanol mix fuel to boot.
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fch42
"Ignition" was already mentioned. It has quite a few "anecdotes" about T-Stoff (then German term for 85%+ pure H2O2).
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mauvehaus
30% is non-chlorine pool shock, and readily available where I am (VT). As it happens, it's also one of the parts of two part wood bleach. The other part is a solution of NaOH (lye, available in solid form for drain opener). Works great, best used while wearing gloves and a face shield.
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icehawk
High test peroxide is used as a rocket monopropellant, and was involved with the loss of the submarines HMS Sidon and Kursk.
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Ygg2
Many things are used as rocket propellant not least of which O2. As in all things dose makes the poison.
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chowells
You missed a prefix in monopropellant. That "mono-" is doing a lot of work that you ignored.
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Ygg2
Oh, then add nitrous oxide. There, problem solved.

That "mono-" is doing a lot of work that you ignored.

Ironic, given they generally produce less thrust.

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perihelions
Previously:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=dioxygen%20difluoride

And others in the series:

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=things%20won%27t%20work

https://www.science.org/topic/blog-category/things-i-wont-wo...

High overlap with: (rocket fuels)

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=ignition%20informal

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baq
Ignition! is highly recommended.
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robocat
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thedanbob
I hated high school chemistry but both this series and that book are among my favorite scientific reads.
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ChrisMarshallNY
> fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature. But that's how you get it to react with oxygen to make a product that's worse in pretty much every way.

That kind of prose is why I love reading this chap's stuff.

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genocidicbunny
There's something reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's style to Derek's "Things I Won't Work With" series.
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bovermyer
I wonder if you can still order a kilo of "Satan's kimchi" from that supplier in China. If you ever could.
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araes
They don't appear to offer Dioxygen Difluoride (O2F2, CAS: 7783-44-0)[1] any longer.

[1] https://commonchemistry.cas.org/detail?cas_rn=7783-44-0

Closest they now offer is Tungsten difluoride dioxide (WO2F2, CAS: 14118-73-1).[2]

[2] http://www.sagechem.com/product/1037013

If you go to: R501 Tower A, New Youth Plaza, 8 Jia Shan Road, Hangzhou, China[3] you could ask in person.

[3] https://www.hxchem.net/English/hycontactlizi3865.html

Almost interested in sending them an email out of boredom just to see whether they make it with custom synthesis.

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rbanffy
Check the address. If the building is still standing, then no.
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jandrewrogers
One of the fun parts of chemistry is that most chemicals that ordinarily exist are quite far from having the most extreme possible properties that you can ascribe to a chemical. It doesn’t really matter what the property is. This is almost by definition, as “extreme properties” is roughly a synonym for “extremely unfavorable thermodynamics”.

Nonetheless, chemists are obsessed with these because in theory you can engineer chemicals with completely implausible, or at the very least counter-intuitive, properties in a lab if you can figure out how to do it. It is the equivalent of extreme performance-engineering geekery in software. You do it because you can, not necessarily because you have a use case.

Topics like “theoretical limits of high explosive power”[0] and a lot of other things that will put you on a government list are something chemists definitely geek out on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octanitrocubane

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philipwhiuk
Good old FOOF
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zidad
Found my next metal band name, thanks!
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the__alchemist
Ideally makes heavy use of pyrotechnics.
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stackedinserter
FOOF-sulfur rocket engine would be fun.
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GarnetFloride
That would be most definitely be classed as Type-3 fun.
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credit_guy
Derek Lowe would never work with it, but this wikipedia page[1] lists 4 rocket propellant choices that contain F2O2 as the oxydizer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_rocket_propellant#Bipro...

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dfox
These are mixtures of fluorine and oxygen, not FOOF.
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pixl97
Ah yes, FOOF. The last sound you hear before you melt, explode, blow up, and disassociate at a molecular level.
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m4rtink
And all of that at the same time! ;-)
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mouse_
I clicked that permalink to lateral science ("Blown up or poisoned") and unfortunately the website appears to be hacked. :(
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doug-moen
The page is archived, and it is a fun read: https://web.archive.org/web/20111229065146/http://www.latera...
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RandomBacon
Bit rot: the article links to http://www.lateralscience.co.uk which is now just an advertisement for online gambling.
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philipkglass
Here's a good snapshot of that page as it appeared in 2010, when this article linked to it:

https://web.archive.org/web/20100430182802/http://www.latera...

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rbanffy
I remember this article and I'm laughing before I even click the link. What a delightful read. Even more delightful I've never encountered this molecule.
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mmonaghan
I love Derek Lowe's writing. I think I've read most of his articles but this series is my favorite.
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shadowgovt
Ah, good ol' FOOF: the chemical with the convenient name-synchronicity to what it will do to you!
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formerly_proven
There’s also FOOOF and FOOOOF, as well as FOOOOOF

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_fluoride#

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salgernon
Kind of like CAR CAAR etc.
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NooneAtAll3
Carbon Argonite? =)
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spacedcowboy
Chemical nominative determinism at its best.
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blantonl
This guy's writing style makes him a worldwide treasure, and probably inspired a few young chemists.

I'll always read and re-read his blog posts when they are posted here.

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tonetegeatinst
Have already read this before and was interesting.

I did some research and inquiry and found out you can in fact get florine gas....and they can even compress it in tanks if you want.

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sortalongo
433 kcal/mole

For reference, TNT is 1kcal/g. This is 6.2 kcal/g.

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moffkalast
Less of a FOOF and more of a BOOM
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tim333
The article is good stuff. It's a shame he's now having to be writing Crisis, Part IX etc about the Trump admin trying to trash things. (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43418192)
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__MatrixMan__
In case you weren't dissuaded by the article, here's the synthesis procedure that it starts off by referencing: https://sci-hub.st/https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-1139(00)803...
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cperciva
FOOF, not to be confused with F00F (a bug in the Pentium which allowed unprivileged processes to lock up the system): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_F00F_bug
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stuaxo
2010 being 15 years ago is making me feel pretty ancient.
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pazimzadeh
hopefully this isn't trending because of the recent controversy about fluoride in tap water?
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relwin
YouTube chemists visit Dr. Kraus' fluorine lab in Germany: https://youtu.be/UzIH6raTxyE?si=74Pfn0i8Whq09Iim
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tverbeure
I will always reread the story about Satan's Kimchi.
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cwillu
FOOF, not to be confused with the FLOOF's that everyone wants to work with
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wiredfool
Absolute classic of the genera

  At seven hundred freaking degrees, fluorine starts to dissociate into monoatomic radicals, thereby losing its gentle and forgiving nature.

  If the paper weren't laid out in complete grammatical sentences and published in JACS, you'd swear it was the work of a violent lunatic.
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speckx
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narrator
A. G. Streng would probably have been forgotten about like so many if he hadn't been such a risk taking experimental chemist. Now someone's probably going to make a movie or comic book about him.