Azide - Safety

Safety

  • Azides are explosophores and toxins.
  • Sodium azide is toxic (LD50 oral (rat) = 27 mg/kg) and can be absorbed through the skin. It decomposes explosively upon heating to above 275 °C and reacts vigorously with CS2, bromine, nitric acid, dimethyl sulfate, and a series of heavy metals, including copper and lead. In reaction with water or Brønsted acids the highly toxic and explosive hydrogen azide is released.
  • Heavy metal azides, such as lead azide are primary high explosives detonable when heated or shaken. Heavy-metal azides are formed when solutions of sodium azide or HN3 vapors come into contact with heavy metals or their salts. Heavy-metal azides can accumulate under certain circumstances, for example, in metal pipelines and on the metal components of diverse equipment (rotary evaporators, freezedrying equipment, cooling traps, water baths, waste pipes), and thus lead to violent explosions.
  • Some organic and other covalent azides are classified as highly explosive and toxic (inorganic azides as neurotoxins; azide ions as cytochrome c oxidase inhibitors).
  • It has been reported that sodium azide and polymer-bound azide reagents react with dichloromethane and chloroform to form di- and triazidomethane resp., which are both unstable in high concentrations in solution. Various devastating explosions were reported while reaction mixtures were being concentrated on a rotary evaporator. The hazards of diazidomethane (and triazidomethane) have been well documented.
  • Solid iodoazide is explosive and should not be prepared in the absence of solvent.

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