are they saying it was in the boot/trunk when it went off???
Posted on 03/25/2010 4:19:16 PM PDT by GovernmentShrinker
... A British hairdresser died after her cigarette ignited a leaking bottle of hydrogen peroxide bleach which then blew up in her car as she drove along a quiet country lane ... "We want to warn people how volatile hydrogen peroxide is, even if it is kept in the boot of a car. Jennie’s friends have all said they carry it," added her mother Pauline Mitchell.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
BTW, it is worth noting that the FDA is considering limiting the amount of peroxide citizens can buy.
Guess she didn’t survive initiation.
It’s the quantity I’m wondering most about. If aqueous hydrogen peroxide solution spills, the water can evaporate, leaving very concentrated hydrogen peroxide. But could the quantity of hydrogen peroxide in a single portable bottle of a strength intended for direct application to hair, cause more than a tiny, brief explosion? I’m thinking not, or there would be a long history of household accidents where peroxide hair bleach had leaked with evaporation of water and then then set off by a cigarette or other spark.
I agree with you — I don’t think the peroxide is what exploded. Nor do I think there could have been enough peroxide-sourced oxygen build-up to account for the explosion.
are they saying it was in the boot/trunk when it went off???
Interesting comparison case here http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2000/HZB0001.htm involving a spill of 2 gallons of 35% hydrogen peroxide in an aircraft cargo hold. After landing, some soaked items nearby were tranferred to another aircraft, and later found smoldering when that aircraft landed. No explosions, despite the fact that large quantities of this stuff, after time for plenty of evaporation-concentration, were lying around airport tarmac while all sorts of activities (including combustion-engine powered vehicles) went on right next to it.
They’re saying that’s where the bottle was stored. The only remotely plausible theory is that the decomposing peroxide produced a dangerously high build-up of oxygen in the car and that’s what ignited. However, that really doesn’t sound plausible to me, when we’re talking about a small bottle in a concentration intended for direct use on hair. And neither trunks nor passenger compartments are airtight, limiting the potential for concentrated build-up of oxygen.
That’s the same story.
Yes, I know. But a different source and photos. Sometimes different stories yield additional info.
One possibility is that she had been in the car for a long enough drive to fill the car with a high concentration of oxygen, and that the cigarette had ignited the upholstery, which flashed in the rich mixture, but this would have had to be a fairly long drive.
Its the exact same story link that Kaylar posted.
It can be used to make explosive but this stuff is in every beauty salon ranging for 10-40 volume .It’s spilled on towels etc all the time , they put it on womens hair and put them under a hairdryer to make it process faster.
I used to see people smoking while applying it to others hair.
Never seen a beauty shop explode in all my years.
There must be more to this story than is being told.
Terrorist are trying to buy this stuff in large volumes to make explosives which makes me wonder what else was in the car.
It's easy enough to make that serious terrorists wouldn't be hindered by that move. It's not a bad idea to limit the concentrations available to random consumers (already done), and limiting the total amounts could provide some safety benefit in terms of stupid teenagers trying to make homemade explosives, etc, but I don't see the possibility of enough benefit to justify the infringement on freedom of a blanket restriction on quantity purchases from a bricks-and-mortar retail store. I'm sure there are already limitations on shipment of large qunatities of highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide (if only due to shippers' safety restrictions).
The stuff isn't terribly hard to concentrate to 35% or so. The most restriction on in-person retail sales that would be reasonable is along the lines of requiring ID to prove you're an adult before buying more than a couple of bottles at a time. Make it difficult for stupid kids to buy up a bunch and do something dangerously stupid with it.
Frankly, there are other things that should be higher on the priority list for sales restrictions to minors, from a safety standpoint. Acetaminophen (Tylenol) tops the list, since it the leading cause of acute liver failure requiring transplant (in the US), and the effects are greatly increased by alcohol consumption. Yet nothing at all stops a 14 year old girl from buying a bottle of Tylenol and taking several to deal with her hangover, and then swallowing even more without realizing it when she pops a Midol she bought for her menstrual cramps and bloating.
It makes sense to have some restrictions on bulk purchases of the sort that you wouldn't find in a retail store, similar to the current restrictions on bulk ammonium nitrate fertilizer purchases -- but that wouldn't have anything to do with the FDA -- more like the BATF and/or DHS.
Government Shrinker posted the thread and the original link. I did not notice another link. Sorry if it was a dupe.
30%+ stuff can't be placed in passenger aircraft, even if it is packaged and labeled correctly. The "smoldering" of mail the report claims was probably steam caused by the heat generated by paper oxidation. As long as the water from the peroxide was present, it would not have burned. The heat would release steam and the oxygen from any remaining peroxide to the air w/o causing any additional problems, or risks.
the stuff you can get at the beauty supply runs about 30%.
Well, the unknown element to me is this concentrated 30% hairdresser and nuclear reactor-only grade H202.
Normally, H202 of any concentration decomposes fairly gradually, but my Merck index says that impurities, especially metals, can cause much more rapid decomposition. Get some heat into closed car, spill some on the carpeting with some of that glitter in there that gets everywhere and I’m thinkin’ BLAMMO. All elements present!
the 10-40 volume peroxide you are talking about is roughly a 6% solution.
And now that I think about (been a long time since I went to beauty school and I don’t keep up since I developed a sever allergy to the chemicals)the powder bleach that is mixed with the peroxide could start a fire if it came into contact
with transmission fluid.
Lots of fires start in peoples sheds where they store their transmission fluid above their pool chemicals when the bottles leak.
NO 10-40 volume that hairdressers use is roughly 6% ;)
That’s more in line with what I’d expect...not knowing anything about hairdresser-grade. H202 is so apparently benign in its usual 3% concentration but is a very vigorous oxidizing agent if you actually look up what industrial grades are capable of. If there was some glitter lying around on the floor carpeting (undoubtedly an organic polyester material) the combo can burst into flames at 30% conc. Still, even at lower concentrations, a reasonable amount of H202 could let a load of oxygen go if the conditions are right.
The longer she was in the car, the *lower* the oxygen concentration should have been. She’d have been breathing and the total airspace inside an Austin Mini is very small. Plus a moving car would be pulling through more outside air than a parked car. One possibility is that the container (reportedly stored in the trunk) leaked most of its contents before she got in, and enough time had elapsed that much of the water had evaporated, leaving a highly concentrated and highly flammable liquid. IF the configuration of the car was such that this could have been in the trunk, yet leaked most of the contents into the passenger compartment, then theoretically the carpet underneath the smoking driver could have been holding some pretty explosive stuff. But I’m having trouble seeing how the total quantity of peroxide could have been enough to support that scenario. A couple of gallons in the trunk could support that, but her parents say it was just a little bottle.
I’m leaning towards something close to the theories advanced by poster ClearCase_guy at #6 and poster ronnyqyest at #32. A very tiny explosion or fire could have startled the driver, and caused a collision which resulted in a fire involving the gas tank. If the collision happened very quickly after the startle, witnesses could have been confused about the sequence of events (collision vs. car bursting into flames), especially if they did actually see a tiny bit of flame before the collision.
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