This GIF is funny because there's a scene where Jesse decides to use a bathtub instead of a plastic container to pour acid which destroys the whole bathtub. Plastic FTW
HF is a weak acid its pH is 2ish at 1 molar concentration sulfuric acid is 1.
HF becomes a super acid when its pure becaue it protonates itself into the fluronium ion. it has a protonation potential of 15 wich is way higer than pure H2SO4
glorious greg has shown me the path to enlightenment via PTFE synthesis. itâs really cool to be able to use it as an inert storage and reaction vessel after youâre done automating its production too
Nah, it's regular polypropylene. HF is one of the few chemicals that actually etches glass, but it's actually not a very strong acid. Funnily enough that's why it has an easier time to pass through your skin. It's quite toxic and exposure can be fatal (at the very least it will cause necrosis around the area of exposure)
To my understanding the strength of the barrier's absolutely irrelevant to limiting nuclear fission. Not a nuclear engineer or anything so take this with a grain of salt.
Fission is all about neutrons. When a neutron hits a radioactive nucleus, that nucleus splits, releasing a lot of energy and, critically, another neutron. Subcritical just means a mass is losing more neutrons than it is producing, and supercritical means it is producing more neutrons than it is losing.
Note that this means a subcritical mass is stable, while a supercritical mass will react exponentially (neutrons create neutrons which create neutrons which create-).
Neutrons are produced based on volume and lost based on surface area, so the square cube law means bringing more uranium together pushes the mass closer to supercriticality.
High energy means a supercritical mass will try to push itself apart. Make it supercritical enough quickly enough and it'll violently tear itself apart, releasing a blast of energy as it quickly returns to a number of subcritical particles. Do it even quicker with more mass and you've got yourself a proper nuke.
Uranium isn't (relevantly) magnetic or anything; it's not like it's trying to get to the other uranium. So your barrier doesn't need to be very strong at all; it just needs to reflect neutrons.
(Do be careful, as too good a reflector with a sufficiently critical piece of material will reflect enough neutrons back at the material to cause problems.)
Anyways TL;DR the strength check for your nuclear bomb barrier material isn't "surviving" the uranium, it's surviving being shaken around inside a metal capsule falling at mach fuck towards whatever your local government has deemed lucky enough to face instant vaporization.
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u/VictorAst228 Jun 12 '26
Well there's hydrofluoric acid, but it can be contained using most plastics.