[rescue] Re: CRAY-2 coolant

[Steve Pacenka]

On Thu, 2002-02-07 at 16:17, George Adkins wrote:
> On Thursday 07 February 2002 01:06 pm, you wrote:
> > On Thu, 2002-02-07 at 12:40, Stuart Johnson wrote:
> > > The cooling liquid in a CRAY-2 is a 3M product called Flourinert. It
> > > turned out to be less than inert - when a module arced in the tank the
> > > byproduct turned out to be phosgene gas. This is what precipitated the
> > > redesign of the coolant resevoir from four interconnected cylinders to
> > > the waterfall.
> > >
> > > We supposedly had a sales rep that would drink a glass of Flourinert
> > > as part of his sales presentation to demonstrate how safe it was.
> >
> > For the nonchemists on the list,
> >
> >    phosgene = mustard gas = pesticide and chemical warfare agent
> >
> 
> phosgene IS NOT =  mustard gas IS NOT =  pesticide.
> 
> For the non chemists reading or _*posting*_ to the list, these chemical 
> poisons are unrelated and absolutely NOT the same things.  If you don't know 
> what these chemicals are, I have included a brief but pedantic explanation 
> below. 

Sorry; George is correct on all counts.  _Phosphine_ (PHsub3) is the
pesticide (grain fumigant) I was thinking of.

-- SP