There’s a problem NOT to have…

[fbhjr]

On the ongoing quest not to have to put sprinklers in my giant robot
freezers, I’ve been looking at other fire suppression things.  (Not that
the info isn’t useful for the fire show as well.)
On the McMaster-Carr website, they
have item 6435T23.  It is a fire extinguisher that can:
“Smother flames and dissipate heat from combustible-metal fires involving
magnesium, sodium, potassium, uranium, and powdered aluminum.”

Wait… burning uranium?
Who has that problem?  The first three I know used to be in my high school
chemistry lab, so I can understand needing one of those extinguishers for
that.  Aluminum I know burns when mixed with iron oxide.  (Usually under
the heading of thermite.)  That was something I saw in my freshman college
chemistry class.
But, uranium?
Yes, yes, I can see where it sits on the periodic table and figure out that
oxygen can react with it and it would probably be exothermic.  (I can’t
tell how exothermic just by looking at it, but chemistry wasn’t my best
class.)

What worries me is that it is apparently common enough that it is worth
putting on product description.

But, I guess it saves some phone calls.
“Hi, I’m calling from Dr. Evil’s office and we have a product question for
you?”
“Yes, go ahead.”
“Can we use the 6435T23 class D fire extinguisher on burning uranium?”
“ Wait, let me look in the book…  Hmmm, it doesn’t say.  I’ll call the
manufacture and give you a ring back.”
“Can you hurry?  All we’ve got is that and some sharks with fricking laser
beams, and they’re what started it in the first place.”

Comments

[evrgreen.livejournal.com]

LOL!!!!!! Good story, there!!

Very finely powdered aluminum can certainly combust, but it is usually more of an explosion - like flour dust in enclosed space with even distribution and ignition source. Some Chinese factories had aluminum dust explosions about a year or so ago as they didn't bother with safety ventilation system checks.

Burning uranium? That must get awfully hot - but I guess that is essentially what occurred at the Fukushima power plant, the fuel pellets became so hot that they melted their Zinc cladding and the metal tubes that kept them in place.

All that you need to do is to develop a gravity nullifying system and install it in your freezer. Tests aboard the space station have proven that in the absence of gravity and external air convection (as from a fan) a fire will simply burn briefly until the available oxygen near it is exhausted, and will then simply snuff itself out. Without air flow, or gravity to cause&maintain gas air flow to feed it more oxygen, fires go out. You just have to develop anti-gravity plating, and make sure that your freezer is relatively air-tight and you turn off the circulating fans when you detect the presence of a fire. Seems simple enough to pull off in the remaining months ! ;-)