can we use methyl parathion instead of parathion? can is it effective?
Of course! Methyl parathion is less toxic than Ethyl Parathion but as someone once said, the difference is "really really really nasty" versus "really reall nasty." Frankly, I wouldn't want to be around either of them.
I've recently become aware of a rather nasty substance, Dimethylmercury. Mercury compounds as poisons have been discussed before, but I don't think this one has, and it has some interesting properties.
The following page details the case of a toxicologist who, during a comparative test, dripped a couple of drops on her gloved hand by accident. Several months later she was dead.
http://www.testfoundation.org/dimethylmercury.htm
Dimethylmercury, a clear liquid, is toxic ("LD50 FOR METHYLMERCURY (MEHG) INJECTED INTO YOLK SAC OF CHICK EMBRYOS ON DAY 5 OF INCUBATION WAS 40-50 UG."), chronic, permeates skin and, as the case in question shows, also passes through latex. Apparently if you spill some on your hand, you'd have to be wearing both silvershield and neoprene gloves to be protected.
As a concerned citizen, of course, I'm concerned that this poison could be used on me by someone I don't know and who the police would be unable to link to me, and who would be several months gone by the time I died. Assuming they covered their tracks, It would be astonishingly difficult to track them down, as the only route available to detectives would be to find out who could perform a synthesis, or who had access to the precursors. And I'm sure they'd have been competent enough to have covered their tracks.
Precursors for example, like mercury iodide or methyl lithium, as detailed in the brief synthesis below:
"As with most dimethyl chemicals, dimethylmercury is synthesized in two steps, each one attaching a methyl group to the central mercury atom. In the case of dimethylmercury, synthesis begins with HgI2 and 2 CH3Li (a total molecular energy of 84.6 kJ/mol). In the first step of the synthesis reaction, the mercury iodide and one of the methyl lithium molecules combine in a double-replacement reaction to form HgICH3 and LiI, releasing 178.6 kJ/mol to settle at a molecular energy of -94.1 kJ/mol. Then, the resulting HgICH3 reacts with another methyl lithium in a second double-replacement reaction, forming a second LiI and dimethylmercury, releasing another 161.3 kJ/mol of energy and winding up with a molecular energy of -255.4 kJ/mol. Thus, the total change in energy during the synthesis of dimethylmercury is -339.9 kJ/mol. "
I have no idea if this is the optimum synthesis, or whether other methods would work with a lower yield. Dimethylmercury is volatile, and needs to be kept in a sealed container and cooled in an ice bath before opening. My first thought of bubbling methane gas from a gas supply through mercury would not work as the dimethylmercury would boil off before it could form. Possibilities may include passing the gas through a chilled pipe (less than freezing) after passing it through the mercury, or cycling the gas so the relevant molar amounts (2 moles of methane to one of mercury) are kept pressurized in a sealed system.
If HgI and methyl lithium were needed, mercury iodide is on megalomanias 'Watched chemicals' list. However:
"when a solution of mercury (ic) chloride containing mercury and chlorine is added to a solution of potassium iodide containing potassium and iodine, such a mutual exchange takes place, the potassium combining with the chlorine to form potassium chloride, and the mercury combining with the iodine forming mercury iodide. The formation of the mercury iodide is seen, as it is of a scarlet colour and does not dissolve in water, whereas both the mercury chloride and the potassium iodide were colourless solutions. If the precipitated mercury iodide be filtered off, the clear solution remaining will be found to contain potassium chloride. The change may be shown by a chemical equation, "
from
http://www.ntu.edu.au/education/wardonli.htm
Mercuric chloride is obtainable from either direct action of chlorine on mercury, or may (and this is just a guess on my part) be formed from chlorine containing compounds like bleach. KI is readily obtained in 25ml quantities from any chemist. Chlorine gas production has already been described on this forum.
Methyl lithium (or methyllithium) is a little trickier. A synthesis follows:
"The submitters prepared methyl lithium in the following manner. Methyliodide (425.7 g., 3.00 moles) was added with stirring to 48 g. (7.0 g. atoms) of lithium in 2.5 l. of ether under nitrogen at a rate adequate to maintain gentle reflux of the ether. After 24 hours the solution of methyllithium was decanted into a storage vessel filled with nitrogen, The concentration was estimated in the usual way by hydrolysis of an aliquot and titration with 0.1N hydrochloric acid."
from:
http://www.orgsyn.org/orgsyn/orgsyn...p?prep=cv5p0859
Which requires ether and methyliodide. Both of these syntheses are on Rhodium:
http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/methyliodide.html
http://www.rhodium.ws/chemistry/ethyl.ether.html
This entire process may not be the simplest, and it might well be possible to make the methyl lithium directly by modifying the methyl iodide synthesis. If you can get any of the later chemicals directly and securely, you can of course skip to that step. The most difficult part of the entire process would be acquisition of Mercury, but not much is required. I suspect the quantity in a thermometer may even provide enough to kill if all your yields were 100%.
A brief warning though. Even research chemists now refuse to work with this substance due to its toxicity. Be very careful.
Mercury itself, and most of its compounds, are very insoluble and so are not hazardous in themselves. It was discovered, however, that in anaerobic sediments where there was industrial mercury waste, slightly soluble dimethyl mercury, (CH3)2Hg, was produced. If fish containing dimethyl mercury are consumed, the often fatal Minamata Disease results. The disease is named after the Japanese bay in which the mercury was released that brought this to notice. Dimethyl mercury occurs in tuna fish in extremely tiny amounts that are probably only a testimony to how sensitive the detection methods can be. In larger amounts, it is reputed to cause fetal damage, but is very probably no general hazard at all, because it is so rare.
I wonder if you could synth it from Merbromin ("Mercurochrome")
I don't think dimethylmercury is THAT toxic... Even if it is, you have nothing to fear; mercury poisoning can EASILY be detected, so if one kill some idiots using it, one would surely be jailed and bubba would... nevermind.
Quote:
Mercury itself, and most of its compounds, are very insoluble and so are not hazardous in themselves. Posted by Zeitgeist
Zeitgeist, mercury isn't soluble but it IS hazardous; while mercury nitrate and dimethylmercury, for example, are water and fats soluble, respectively, and they are hazardous too.
Agreed, some of that was just ripped from a web page and i didn't read all of it carefully.
My first thought of bubbling methane gas from a gas supply through mercury would not work as the dimethylmercury would boil off before it could form.
It is impossible to use alkanes as general reagents as they just won’t react. Methyl lithium, would have to be employed to add a methyl group. Methyl magnesium bromide would probably work as well.
You do however probably not need to use the iodide(of methane), using the chloride or bromide salt is far more common in synthesis reactions, and leads to a safer, more controlled reaction.
Although it is perfectly feasible to make this compound in an improvised lab, it is almost certainly not worth the effort as the risk involved in working with such chemicals in an uncontrolled environment is high, and the synth of the precursors will be time consuming. i.e. synth of HgI2, LiMe, MeI etc.
Far more simple and effective toxins can be more or less 'found' in natural materials....... Just think of the trouble the authorities are having with ricin at the moment
would not recommend using compounds besides methyl iodide in the reaction simply because the reactivity of methyl bromide and especially the chloride are so much lower. You might be able to get away with using methyl bromide.
A poison like this is valuable because it seems to take so much time to get the job done. Sure it may be detectable, but will the cops be able to determine when the exposure happened 3 months down the road? Not likely. The poisoning would long since have faded from the minds of victum and witnesses alike. Food products could be randomly poisoned and they would long since have been eaten, thrown away, and forgotton months later leaving nothing for the investigaters to go on.
Imagine if you will a person with a water bottle filled with dimethylmercury at a football game. He has an aisle seat high up, one of the cheap seats. He opens his water bottle and tips it over. The liquid gushes out and starts the slow climb down the steps. 1 liter, maybe 2, flowing like a tiny stream down step after step. There it sits and vaporizes. Hundreds climb these stairs over the course of the next few hours. The fumes linger, invisable, odorless, harmless... until months later when people start turning up dead without any connection.
frågan är bara hur många som dog under framställningen.
så ledsen jag blir