From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Thu Apr 10 2003 - 16:42:00 MDT
On Thu, Apr 10, 2003 at 11:05:26AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> On Thu, 10 Apr 2003, Anders Sandberg wrote:
>
> > Hmm, Iron(III)-hexacyanoferrate(II). Despite containing cyanide
> > ions, it is not very toxic. There is an amusing little story
> > related to this in Michael Swanwicks "Periodic Table of Science
> > Fiction": http://www.scifi.com/scifiction/elements/thallium.html
>
> Hmmm, Anders, this story doesn't make any sense. (I'd like to see
> the actual chemical formula(s) for the contents of Prussian Blue).
> It just doesn't make sense that something containing iron and
> ferrate (also containing iron) would function to reduce potential
> radiation damage because iron normally functions a pro-oxidant
> that leads to DNA damage.
http://webexhibits.org/pigments/indiv/overview/prussblue.html has some
nice information about the chemical, including a picture of the molecule
- it looks very much like a hollow box with iron atoms at the corners
and cyanide edges.
http://www.fda.gov/cder/drug/infopage/prussian_blue/Q&A.htm#8gests
that it acts as a chelator. Similar info at
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/druginfo/uspdi/202737.html (the
number of sites dealing with pills against dirty bombs are staggering -
people are *scared*) http://www.iic.cas.cz/~grygar/AbrSV_topics_hcf.html
has lots of electrochemical details.
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:wDGHV2Ijs3MC:www.egora.fr/Tox-In/TOXIANGL/ANTIDOTE/BPRUSSE.HTM+prussian+blue+thallium&hl=en&ie=UTF-8ø\
does suggest that there is potassium involved. Given the production
method (my first URL) which includes potassium compounds, it could
simply be that potassium is chelated by the cage-like molecule first,
and then dropped in favor of thallium in the intestine.
Ah,
http://216.239.51.100/search?q=cache:4f2SXz4PaX0C:www.medscape.com/viewarticle/418303_3+prussian+blue+thallium+potassium&hl=en&ie=UTF-8
seems to agree with this. It states tht Prussian Blue is potassium
ferrihexacyanoferrate (II).
http://www.chemie.uni-greifswald.de/~analytik/pdf%20files/Nr161.pdf has
even more details, and discusses how the composition depends on
manufacture.
I think Swanwick was right about this. Although I wonder if the
concentration of the salt in ink is high enough...
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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