New answers tagged toxicity
8
Thanks for asking this question. I'd heard before that Pu was actually more chemically toxic than its toxicity due to its radioactivity, but had never followed up by checking out this claim in detail.
tl;dr: Plutonium is very safe unless you grind it up into dust and inhale it, in which case the hazard is probably from radiation, not chemical toxicity. There ...
10
Nilay's answer, as well as the comments, do a great job of explaining why methanol is toxic (and ethanol is comparatively less toxic). I'll take a different approach here: I'll explain why ethanol is the major component of alcoholic drinks. To start off, ethanol is not the only alcohol in alcoholic drinks1. Other alcohols such as Glycerol, Tryptophol, Tert-...
27
The problem arises from the metabolized products of methanol. Methanol oxidizes in the liver by an enzyme called alcohol dehydrogenase to formaldehyde which is further metabolized to formic acid by another enzyme called aldehyde dehydrogenase. This formic acid is the source for acute toxicity associated with methanol poisoning. Accumulation of this chemical ...
19
Actual toxicity other than radioactivity is not, as far as I know, very well studied. Quite simply, most of the danger is the radioactivity in general, as well as the toxicity of decay products (uranium and americium).
Basic knowledge of biochemistry though suggests that it should be toxic for the same reasons that most high atomic weight metals are, namely ...
21
The toxicity is primarily due to radioactivity and to absorption by the body, where that radioactivity can act internally. There is, "significant deposition of plutonium in the liver and in the "actively metabolizing" portion of bone," according to Miner and Schonfeld.
Many $\ce{Pu}$ isotopes are primarily alpha-emitters, with "high ...
0
Tin lined cans are commonly used in processing light colored fruit as the tin is preferentially oxidized by residual oxygen left in the product and the headspace of the can, headspace gasses can be reduced by steam flushing immediately before seaming. If the oxygen levels are high enough a black line will be found at the juncture of the product and the ...
0
There is only scarce literature about Onchidal:(
The mechanism of the AChE blockade by Onchidal was suggested to be a novel one; it was not like the Sarin-like inactivation of the serine residue in the activation site (1).
Note that alpha, beta-unsaturated aldehyde in Onchidal is potentially reactive. Onchidal has been shown to give some adducts to lysine ...
Top 50 recent answers are included
