Art by DD Maucher, photo by Lisa Shafir. Southampton Bay
Southampton NY. August 8th 2012
After swimming in bioluminesence in a bay near my friend’s house, visiting the ponds and lakes around South Hampton with Gary Glanz and receiving an email about the Mill River Pond that is full of phosphorus I decided to do some catching up on phosphorus in Wikipeadia.
The lakes I visited are all surrounded by mansions with highly groomed property. The polluted water to which the property owners (blindly) contribute is also polluted from the local farms and unconscious normal toxic people-infrastructure. Best answer so far is to educate to the caretakers. Second best answer: ” mud ball party at their house.”
Southampton Village Lake
Here are my notes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus
Fertiliser
It is mostly in the form of superphosphate of lime. Superphosphate of lime is a mixture of two phosphate salts, calcium dihydrogen phosphate Ca(H2PO4)2 and calcium sulfate dihydrate CaSO4·2H2O produced by the reaction of sulfuric acid and water with calcium phosphate.
Phosphorus is an essential macromineral for plants, which is studied extensively in edaphology in order to understand plant uptake from soil systems. In ecological terms, phosphorus is often a limiting factor in many environments; i.e. the availability of phosphorus governs the rate of growth of many organisms. In ecosystems an excess of phosphorus can be problematic, especially in aquatic systems, resulting in eutrophication which sometimes lead to algal blooms.
Organic compounds of phosphorus form a wide class of materials, many are required for life, but some are extremely toxic. Fluorophosphate esters are among the most potent neurotoxins known. A wide range of organophosphorus compounds are used for their toxicity to certain organisms as pesticides (herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, etc.) and weaponised as nerve agents. Most inorganic phosphates are relatively nontoxic and essential nutrients.[10]
Etymology
The name Phosphorus in Ancient Greece was the name for the planet Venus and is derived from the Greek words (φως = light, φέρω = carry), which roughly translates as light-bringer or light carrier.[12] (In Greek mythology and tradition, Augerinus (Αυγερινός = morning star, in use until today), Hesperus or Hesperinus (΄Εσπερος or Εσπερινός or Αποσπερίτης = evening star, in use until today) and Eosphorus (Εωσφόρος = dawnbearer, not in use for the planet after Christianity) are close homologues, and also associated with Phosphorus-the-planet).
Phosphorus was the 13th element to be discovered. For this reason, and also due to its use in explosives, poisons and nerve agents, it is sometimes referred to as “the Devil’s element”.[35]
HISTORY
German alchemist Hennig Brand in 1669, although other chemists might have discovered phosphorus around the same time.[36] Brand experimented with urine, which contains considerable quantities of dissolved phosphates from normal metabolism.[12] Working in Hamburg, Brand attempted to create the fabled philosopher’s stone through the distillation of some salts by evaporating urine, and in the process produced a white material that glowed in the dark and burned brilliantly. It was named phosphorus mirabilis (“miraculous bearer of light”).[37] His process originally involved letting urine stand for days until it gave off a terrible smell. Then he boiled it down to a paste, heated this paste to a high temperature, and led the vapours through water, where he hoped they would condense to gold. Instead, he obtained a white, waxy substance that glowed in the dark. Brand had discovered phosphorus, the first element discovered since antiquity. We now know that Brand produced ammonium sodium hydrogen phosphate, (NH4)NaHPO4. While the quantities were essentially correct (it took about 1,100 L of urine to make about 60 g of phosphorus), it was unnecessary to allow the urine to rot. Later scientists would discover that fresh urine yielded the same amount of phosphorus.
– Bone ash was the major source of phosphorus until the 1840s.
– Robert Boyle was the first to use phosphorus to ignite sulfur-tipped wooden splints, forerunners of our modern matches, in 1680.
– White phosphorus was first made commercially, for the match industry in the 19th century, by distilling off phosphorus vapour from precipitated phosphates, mixed with ground coal or charcoal, which was heated in an iron pot, in retort.[40] The precipitated phosphates were made from ground-up bones that had been de-greased and treated with strong acids.
– Early matches used white phosphorus in their composition, which was dangerous due to its toxicity. Murders, suicides and accidental poisonings resulted from its use. (An apocryphal tale tells of a woman attempting to murder her husband with white phosphorus in his food, which was detected by the stew’s giving off luminous steam).[43]
– ‘safety matches’ where white phosphorus was substituted by phosphorus sesquisulfide (P4S3), sulfur or antimony sulfide. Such matches are hard to ignite on an arbitrary surface and require a special strip. The strip contains red phosphorus which heats up upon striking, reacts with the oxygen-releasing compound in the head and ignites the flammable material of the head.[13][49]
wwll -British: phosphorus incendiary bombs were used in war on a large scale. Burning phosphorus is difficult to extinguish and if it splashes onto human skin it has horrific effects.
– In a historical coincidence, the Allies used phosphorus incendiary bombs in World War II to destroy Hamburg, the place where the “miraculous bearer of light” was first discovered.[37]
Characteristics
White phosphorus gradually changes to red phosphorus. This transformation is accelerated by light and heat, and samples of white phosphorus almost always contain some red phosphorus and accordingly appear yellow. For this reason it is also called yellow phosphorus.
It glows in the dark (when exposed to oxygen) with a very faint tinge of green and blue, is highly flammable and pyrophoric (self-igniting) upon contact with air and is toxic (causing severe liver damage on ingestion). Owing to its pyrophoricity, white phosphorus is used as an additive in napalm. The odour of combustion of this form has a characteristic garlic smell, and samples are commonly coated with white “(di)phosphorus pentoxide“, which consists of P4O10 tetrahedra with oxygen inserted between the phosphorus atoms and at their vertices. White phosphorus is insoluble in water but soluble in carbon disulfide.[10]
Although the term phosphorescence is derived from phosphorus, the reaction that gives phosphorus its glow is properly called chemiluminescence (glowing due to a cold chemical reaction), not phosphorescence (re-emitting light that previously fell onto a substance and excited it).
– bright red phosphorus is highly reactive and ignites at about 300 °C,[13] though it is still more stable than white phosphorus, which ignites at about 30 °C.[
Phosphorus is not found free in nature, but it is widely distributed in many minerals, mainly phosphates. Phosphate rock, which is partially made of apatite (an impure tri-calcium phosphate mineral), is an important commercial source of this element. About 50 percent of the global phosphorus reserves are in the Arab nations.[21] Large deposits of apatite are located in China, Russia, Morocco, Florida, Idaho, Tennessee, Utah, and elsewhere. 0.19 billion tons were mined in 2011
PRODUCTION
The majority of phosphorus-containing compounds are produced for use as fertilisers.For this purpose, phosphate-containing minerals are converted to phosphoric acid. Two distinct routes are employed, the main one being treatment of phosphate minerals with sulfuric acid. The other process utilises white phosphorus, which may be produced by reaction and distillation from very low grade phosphate sources. The white phosphorus is then oxidised to phosphoric acid and subsequently neutralised with base to give phosphate salts. Phosphoric acid obtained via white phosphorus is relatively pure and is the main source of phosphates used in detergents and other non-fertiliser applications.
The chemical equation for this process when starting with fluoroapatite, a common phosphate mineral, is:
4 Ca5(PO4)3F + 18 SiO2 + 30 C → 3 P4 + 30 CO + 18 CaSiO3 + 2 CaF2
Side products from this production include ferrophosphorus, a crude form of Fe2P, resulting from iron impurities in the mineral precursors. The silicate slag is a useful construction material. The fluoride is sometimes recovered for use in water fluoridation. More problematic is a “mud” containing significant amounts of white phosphorus. Production of white phosphorus is conducted in large facilities in part because it is energy intensive. The white phosphorus is transported in molten form. Some major accidents have occurred during transportation, train derailments at Brownston, Nebraska and Miamisburg, Ohio led to large fires. The worst incident in recent times was an environmental one in 1968 when the sea became contaminated due to spillages and/or inadequately treated sewage from a white phosphorus plant at Placentia Bay, Newfoundland.[28]
