Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
White phosphorus, yellow phosphorus, or simply tetraphosphorus (P 4) is an allotrope of phosphorus. It is a translucent waxy solid that quickly yellows in light (due to its photochemical conversion into red phosphorus ), [ 2 ] and impure white phosphorus is for this reason called yellow phosphorus.
Phosphorus must have been awe-inspiring to an alchemist: it was a product of man, and seeming to glow with a "life force" that did not diminish over time (and did not need re-exposure to light like the previously discovered Bologna Stone). Brand kept his discovery secret, as alchemists of the time did, and worked with the phosphorus trying ...
Irish inventions and discoveries are objects, processes or techniques which owe their existence either partially or entirely to an Irish person. Often, things which are discovered for the first time, are also called "inventions", and in many cases, there is no clear line between the two. Below is a list of such inventions.
It can cause “excruciating burns and lifelong suffering,” a Human Rights Watch spokesperson said.
Elemental phosphorus exists in two major forms, white phosphorus and red phosphorus, but because it is highly reactive, phosphorus is never found as a free element on Earth. It has an occurrence in the Earth's crust of about 0.1%, generally occurring as phosphate in minerals.
His procedure was the same as Brandt's, namely to boil human urine down to a residue, then heat that strongly to give off phosphorus gas which would condense. Godfrey produced two forms: solid phosphorus (the white phosphorus allotrope) and a mix with oil of urine where it remains liquid at room temperature.
People exposed to white phosphorus can suffer severe and sometimes deadly bone-deep burns. It can cause organs to shut down, and burns on just 10% of the body can be fatal, HRW said.
Now, an investigation by The Washington Post has found that the white phosphorus shells used in that attack were made in the United States. While white phosphorus can have military uses ...