Lateral Science - Fluorine, Tiger of Chemistry. Warning - Under no circumstances should anyone but an expert experimental chemist attempt to replicate the work of Gore or Moissan. Elemental fluorine is extremely dangerous and many fatalities resulted from early production methods. The element fluorine is a pale greenish-yellow gas. It occures naturally within some fluorite crystals. Dark violet fluorite from Wölsendorf in Bavaria is called antozonite because the smell of ozone is apparent when crystals are fractured or crushed.
Violet crystals from Quincie, dep. The extreme difficulties in isolating fluorine can be gathered from this account : This most reactive of the elements proved to be exceedingly difficult and dangerous to isolate. Humphrey Davy of England: poisoned, recovered. George and Thomas Knox of Ireland: both poisoned, one bedridden 3 years, recovered. P. Jerome Nickels of Nancy, France: poisoned, died. George Gore of England: fluorine / hydrogen explosion, narrowly escaped injury. Moissan. Things I Won't Work With: Dioxygen Difluoride. The heater was warmed to approximately 700C. The heater block glowed a dull red color, observable with room lights turned off. The ballast tank was filled to 300 torr with oxygen, and fluorine was added until the total pressure was 901 torr. . .
And yes, what happens next is just what you think happens: you run a mixture of oxygen and fluorine through a 700-degree-heating block. "Oh, no you don't," is the common reaction of most chemists to that proposal, ". . .not unless I'm at least a mile away, two miles if I'm downwind. " This, folks, is the bracingly direct route to preparing dioxygen difluoride, often referred to in the literature by its evocative formula of FOOF. Well, "often" is sort of a relative term. And a hard core it is! FOOF is only stable at low temperatures; you'll never get close to RT with the stuff without it tearing itself to pieces. Even Streng had to give up on some of the planned experiments, though (bonus dormitat Strengus?).
History Of Physics. History Of Medicine. History Of Chemistry.