Re: White House Delays Release of Study Showing Toxic Rocket Fuel In Most Americans


"Jo Schaper" <joschapern4ospam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:120r9tmge03qa77@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aidan Karley wrote:
In article <Go7Pf.805377$x96.411457@attbi_s72>, George wrote:

Perchlorate has a number of industrial uses, and it's used in matches,
flares, pyrotechnics, ordnance, and explosives. You are thinking of
perchloroethane (known as PERC), which is used in dry cleaning and used
to be used in white-out before it was reformulated.


I was trying to work out where Jo's article was going wrong. The
IUPAC name for the compound you're referring to is (if I've identified
it properly) 1,1,2,2 tetra-chloro ethylene.
God, I hated learning IUPAC terminology, but it's still better
than talking about the wrong compound.


Ok, we're talking about different things. Around here tetra chloro
ethylene is called perchlorethylene or PCE. It is clear and has a very
sweet/slightly acrid odor. Both it and trichlorethylene *are* big
groundwater problems because without remediation, it pools, doesn't go
away.

All any of this proves is that chlorine and chlorates aren't good for
you. Duh.

That is true. By the way, PERC and PCE are the same substance. 1,1,2,2
tetra-chloro ethylene and perchloroethane are also the same thing. Also
known as Hexachloroethane and Carbon hexachloride. Through biological
action in the subsurface PERC breaks down into TCE (if the right flora are
present). TCE is also amenable to biological breakdown, so bioremediation
is one of the methods used to remediate both substances. Ironically, if
the wrong bacteria are present in the subsurface, TCE can breakdown into
DCE, which is actually more toxic than TCE. So proper testing must be
conducted before bioremediation is attempted at such sites.

George


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