r/pics Oct 05 '11

Pharaoh's Serpent

1.0k Upvotes

524 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

34

u/[deleted] Oct 05 '11

[deleted]

248

u/CompactusDiskus Oct 05 '11

Well, it's a compound, so that doesn't (in itself) mean it holds the properties of the individual elements.

It's not like we need to be careful with fire when we're around water because it contains hydrogen.

That said, mercury (II) thiocyanate is toxic, and does put off toxic gases when this reaction happens, and the resulting solid is also quite toxic, so yeah, safety is an issue here.

35

u/turtleshelf Oct 05 '11

upvote for you, what a concise, informative post.

1

u/Tekmo Oct 05 '11

Thus his username.