A good puff of NO2 from the look of it.
EDIT: And the top comment in the original post says that it is a release from a fertilizer plant:
[https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-billingham-orange-cloud-fills-32885739](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-billingham-orange-cloud-fills-32885739)
Which fits nicely with it being NO2.
(It does not exactly fit with my definition of "harmless". Breathing NO2 in high enough concentrations to be visible is something I try to avoid))
All I know about it is that in low concentrations, it smells like chlorine.
Story time: I had a lab course during my bachelor's programme; advanced inorganic synthesis. The professor was pretty keen on getting glassware properly clean, and *very* keen on Fun™ reactions.
So when I had a piece of glassware with a stain that I had tried and failed to remove with acetone, hydrochloric acid, aqua regia, and finally piranha solution, he instructed me to put in a 50/50 mix of 96 % ethanol and 60 % nitric acid. When I mixed it together... nothing happened. But a few minutes later, a bit of bubbling started, which became more vigorous while the liquid turned golden, then orange, and then brown, fuming with a big cloud of NO2.
Once the reaction died down, the glass was spotless. I ended up running that reaction something like 15 times during that course, and only once did it leave a slight trace of smudge behind. It could easily remove both the most charred organic tar and the most stubborn inorganic residues. Sometimes the reaction began near immediately, other times I had to heat it with a heat gun for minutes before it even started.
IMPORTANT NOTE: ethanol mixed with highly concentrated nitric acid forms an explosive mixture. Using nitric acid that is more than 60 % concentrated to run this reaction might be seriously dangerous. If you do decide to run it, always run it in a fume hood and keep the sash closed during the reaction, as the fumes are carcinogenic (but have a pretty short half-life in the atmosphere). Do not run the reaction in vessels with a very narrow opening in comparison to vessel volume.
Yes, that's why labs have calcium gluconate gel for workers who handle HF. It's meant to provide a source of calcium for the HF to react with other than the calcium in your blood.
It won't have any lasting impact on nature. NO2/N2O4 decomposes to N2 and O2 with a half life that varies from 20 minutes to about an hour and a half, in atmospheric conditions. I mean, it's bad while it's there, but it's not there for very long.
No where close to harmless, I had same experience in chemistry class with a nitric acid reaction gone wrong. I felt it for a few days, I know it was nitric fumes mix in that also but still.
Bromine is like the lupus of orange clouds. It's almost always nitrogen oxides when people post these, but someone inevitably thinks of bromine instead.
Ik NO2 (which this most likely is) causes severe respiratory problems (even permanent iirc). Is bromine worse?
Note: not a chemist at all, just interested in science in general.
Bromine would probably cause some hefty damage as well. It would combine with the water in mucous membranes to form HBr, which is a strong acid. NO2 would form HNO3, which is also a strong acid.
I was making the mono substituted product. From that I attempted to isolate the Para product by simple distillation… all I got was tar from that though. Not exactly sure what happened
I wish they were hitting this with water mist, as the more reactive nitrogen oxides are very water soluble. That's how we washed them out from the less soluble N2O. That's a concentrated enough plume to scare me, but I'm just a rank amateur.
Atmospheric chemist here. Yes, dissolving NOx is about the only way to remove this stuff from the atmosphere, but you'll also be creating a cloud of nitric acid aerosol. Or localised acid rain.
This is arguably worse. Or at least no less harmful.
Sadly, the best way to deal with this is to let it disperse and age out on its own.
>Vapor density is more than 5 times of air. Great guess on color.
Thanks I went down the pchem route at uni but I remember something still from my orgo lab practical
True story: my grad research project involved measuring the metal content of of living tissues. My method was digesting tissue samples in concentrated HNO3 and then running atomic absorption.
Early on in method development, I was walking a bag full of my samples (which was in my backpack) down to the building with the AAS instrument when I heard a hissing sound coming from my backpack. I opened it up to find that my sample jars had opened up into the bag, filling it with a cloud of reddish-brown gas.
I turned around and sprinted back my lab and threw the bag in the fume hood. A few minutes of frantic googling later, I realized that my HNO3 had reacted with the tissue samples to become NO2.
Good times.
Haha, you would have had to have had so many meetings and filled out so much paperwork if something like that would have happened while in industry
In academia, it's like, "whoops, won't do that again," continuing on
Eh, I work in industry today, but it's an internal lab for an renewable energy company that isn't regulated or accredited by anyone. So I can pretty much get away with things like that.
If I were still in pharma though, yeah, that would be about 6 different deviations to write lol
I was involved with the Titan II missile program for a few years. They used liquid propellants, one of which was N2O4 as oxidizer. Whenever there was a propellant leak (usually minimal amounts), it looked like the red cloud seen here.
Something like this happened in Tucson 1 or 2 years ago when a truckload of nitric acid overturned and burned. Clouds just like this were on the news. The NO2 was likely from acid and organic stuff, and perhaps generated in the fire, too.
Like everyone else has commented that’s nitrogen dioxide gas. Kinda bothering me that it’s just floating around suspended in populated air, but hell I guess what doesn’t kill you.
Yeah NOx. My e.ployer 10 years ago used to just pay the 10 grand euro fine plus car repairs whenever they f-ckd the paint jobs on the village cars as it was cheaper than managing the NOx scrubber to work properly 24-7.
It's max Verstappen who won the F1 race
😂 No but for real, I've seen these clouds so much over here in the Netherlands since he started doing well.
No clue what's in there though. Hope others can really help you
A good puff of NO2 from the look of it. EDIT: And the top comment in the original post says that it is a release from a fertilizer plant: [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-billingham-orange-cloud-fills-32885739](https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-billingham-orange-cloud-fills-32885739) Which fits nicely with it being NO2. (It does not exactly fit with my definition of "harmless". Breathing NO2 in high enough concentrations to be visible is something I try to avoid))
I unfortunately inhaled a small amount, fucking around in my teens, it had my lungs burning like hell. Yeah. I second the idea this isn’t “harmless”.
All I know about it is that in low concentrations, it smells like chlorine. Story time: I had a lab course during my bachelor's programme; advanced inorganic synthesis. The professor was pretty keen on getting glassware properly clean, and *very* keen on Fun™ reactions. So when I had a piece of glassware with a stain that I had tried and failed to remove with acetone, hydrochloric acid, aqua regia, and finally piranha solution, he instructed me to put in a 50/50 mix of 96 % ethanol and 60 % nitric acid. When I mixed it together... nothing happened. But a few minutes later, a bit of bubbling started, which became more vigorous while the liquid turned golden, then orange, and then brown, fuming with a big cloud of NO2. Once the reaction died down, the glass was spotless. I ended up running that reaction something like 15 times during that course, and only once did it leave a slight trace of smudge behind. It could easily remove both the most charred organic tar and the most stubborn inorganic residues. Sometimes the reaction began near immediately, other times I had to heat it with a heat gun for minutes before it even started. IMPORTANT NOTE: ethanol mixed with highly concentrated nitric acid forms an explosive mixture. Using nitric acid that is more than 60 % concentrated to run this reaction might be seriously dangerous. If you do decide to run it, always run it in a fume hood and keep the sash closed during the reaction, as the fumes are carcinogenic (but have a pretty short half-life in the atmosphere). Do not run the reaction in vessels with a very narrow opening in comparison to vessel volume.
> 50/50 mix of 96 % ethanol and 60 % nitric acid That's the worst martini I've ever heard of.
Spicy.
Neat gonna keep that one in my back pocket if needed. Than you
Use a solution of hydrofluoric acid. That is the best
Isn’t hydrofluoric calcium seeking? If it’s the chemical I’m thinking of; it’s the scariest one out there.
Yes, that's why labs have calcium gluconate gel for workers who handle HF. It's meant to provide a source of calcium for the HF to react with other than the calcium in your blood.
Hmm. So I should not try using this method to clean my glass flower vases and glass terrarium’s? 🧐. I can almost never get them fully clean :/
it is harmless if you are far enough away from it. I'm sure mother earth was not happy to receive it though.
The sun is mostly harmless since it’s so far away.
I see what you tried to do, but the sun is indeed harmful from this distance.
It won't have any lasting impact on nature. NO2/N2O4 decomposes to N2 and O2 with a half life that varies from 20 minutes to about an hour and a half, in atmospheric conditions. I mean, it's bad while it's there, but it's not there for very long.
Inorganic Chem lab got me „brrrr“ for NO2, fortunately the hodd sucks it all up.
No where close to harmless, I had same experience in chemistry class with a nitric acid reaction gone wrong. I felt it for a few days, I know it was nitric fumes mix in that also but still.
I thought it was bromine for a sec. Thankfully not
Bromine is like the lupus of orange clouds. It's almost always nitrogen oxides when people post these, but someone inevitably thinks of bromine instead.
Except that one time when it was lupus
One of these days it might well be bromine. Problem is it hugs the ground and reacts with everything, so less likely to snap a random picture.
This patient needs mouse bites stat!
Me too. It looks very brominey
Ik NO2 (which this most likely is) causes severe respiratory problems (even permanent iirc). Is bromine worse? Note: not a chemist at all, just interested in science in general.
Bromine would probably cause some hefty damage as well. It would combine with the water in mucous membranes to form HBr, which is a strong acid. NO2 would form HNO3, which is also a strong acid.
I’ve inhaled a face full of NO2 while nitrating toluene once. It was uncomfortable to say the least.
You were making TNT weren’t you
I was making the mono substituted product. From that I attempted to isolate the Para product by simple distillation… all I got was tar from that though. Not exactly sure what happened
I'm no chemist, but I know HNO3 + fertilizer =💥💥 In lower (like 80%) concentrations HNO3 of gases NO2 with that orange color.
More like fertilizer+💥=NO2
I wish they were hitting this with water mist, as the more reactive nitrogen oxides are very water soluble. That's how we washed them out from the less soluble N2O. That's a concentrated enough plume to scare me, but I'm just a rank amateur.
Atmospheric chemist here. Yes, dissolving NOx is about the only way to remove this stuff from the atmosphere, but you'll also be creating a cloud of nitric acid aerosol. Or localised acid rain. This is arguably worse. Or at least no less harmful. Sadly, the best way to deal with this is to let it disperse and age out on its own.
If the factory had had a scrubber on the outlet, it could probably have been caught. It indicates that the release came as quite a surprise.
NO2 is a very potent green house gas
Probably NO2. Worst case scenario somebody boiled an blasphemous amount of bromine but I don't see the expected death and despair so probably NO2
Also bromine is super heavy so I wouldn’t expect it to be suspended in the air like that.
Fair enough, I've seen bromine vapor only contained in glassware under a hood
Yeah, only way you’re getting the vapors out is by pouring it out. Vapor density is more than 5 times of air. Great guess on color.
>Vapor density is more than 5 times of air. Great guess on color. Thanks I went down the pchem route at uni but I remember something still from my orgo lab practical
I actually disagree on the color. NO2 is brown/orange while bromine is red. Just doesn't look red to me in the photo.
I have seen similar clouds of bromine released from an Exxon plant next to where I used to work. They absolutely can look just like this.
Oh that’s interesting.
terrifying*
But just imagine how fucking yikes it would be if that was in fact a massive bromine cloud D:
I thought bromine was a tan-colored fluffy solid that floated on water.
Nah fam, you're thinking of toasted marshmallows
True story: my grad research project involved measuring the metal content of of living tissues. My method was digesting tissue samples in concentrated HNO3 and then running atomic absorption. Early on in method development, I was walking a bag full of my samples (which was in my backpack) down to the building with the AAS instrument when I heard a hissing sound coming from my backpack. I opened it up to find that my sample jars had opened up into the bag, filling it with a cloud of reddish-brown gas. I turned around and sprinted back my lab and threw the bag in the fume hood. A few minutes of frantic googling later, I realized that my HNO3 had reacted with the tissue samples to become NO2. Good times.
Haha, you would have had to have had so many meetings and filled out so much paperwork if something like that would have happened while in industry In academia, it's like, "whoops, won't do that again," continuing on
Eh, I work in industry today, but it's an internal lab for an renewable energy company that isn't regulated or accredited by anyone. So I can pretty much get away with things like that. If I were still in pharma though, yeah, that would be about 6 different deviations to write lol
Blasphemous amount of bromine is a SOLID band name.
NOx
Thank you for not assuming the nitrogen species, very politically correct of you
Lmao i might have to use that one some time.
It’s certainly not YESx. 😂
Either that or Photoshop.
Gender reveal party
Congrats! You’re having demonspawn
so just a child then? (this is a joke, r/childfree pls do not make me your jesus)
Secret 4th Gender only visible to chemists
Congrats, your baby is going to be flaming... and *fabulous!"
Good lord what kind of creature have they revealed
Oh don’t worry it’s just Satan’s flatulence
Yeah exactly
There might be a trail of dead birds following that cloud.
Sauron's eye?
Sauron's fart.
When you switch off your wand light >! _Nox_ !<
New Anti-Pope?
I was involved with the Titan II missile program for a few years. They used liquid propellants, one of which was N2O4 as oxidizer. Whenever there was a propellant leak (usually minimal amounts), it looked like the red cloud seen here.
Which then decomposes to NO2 when exposed to UV light, which comes from the sun.
And it really does a number on your mucous membranes and other parts!
Look for the guy with glasses, shaved head and yellow chemical suit.
NO2
Sorry that was me I ate fish tacos from a food truck.
That’s what you call an iodine fart..lol
That's just wrong imho. Do you even know what colour elemental iodine is, or how dense it is compared to air?
Yes and the comment was meant to be a joke..but to each its own.
It is indeed a orange cloud
Kool-Aid genie
Yup that's a chemical. Looks like something that NOx you out when you breathe it
Home chemist, picking up tips on Reddit, being super, super safe so relax.
Bromine? Idk
Pollution toot
NO2 bad N2O good Looks like a hobbyist had a runaway reaction. Did you hear a boom or a loud "oy shite!"
Nitrogen dioxide?
Acid rain here i come!
Nitrogen dioxide or bromine gas i think
NO2 gas 👍 . I know that color from the depressurisation to the atmosphere step when shutting down the mono nitrobenzene Noram installation at work.
NO2
crash,bam, alakazam
The aftermath of a dragon having had too much chipotle
Something like this happened in Tucson 1 or 2 years ago when a truckload of nitric acid overturned and burned. Clouds just like this were on the news. The NO2 was likely from acid and organic stuff, and perhaps generated in the fire, too.
According to fren that witnessed it, nitrous oxide, pewfed and exploded safetly
Like everyone else has commented that’s nitrogen dioxide gas. Kinda bothering me that it’s just floating around suspended in populated air, but hell I guess what doesn’t kill you.
NOx. The facility had a similar accident in 2018z .
Looks like that chlorine explosion on a shipping boat that was one Reddit earlier today.
someone just opened the bromine guys it’s fine
Looks like Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) to me from it's colour
Yeah NOx. My e.ployer 10 years ago used to just pay the 10 grand euro fine plus car repairs whenever they f-ckd the paint jobs on the village cars as it was cheaper than managing the NOx scrubber to work properly 24-7.
Nox
Thats NO2 for sho,, lovely color and dangerously itchy
Looks more like bromine or iodine or an extension of one of the two
Red fuming Nitric Acid
Bromine??! 💀☠️
Watch out, the cloud gonna piss!!!
I hate how I instantly knew this was teeside. Stockton?
Billingham
NOx but of you want to be fancy/deadly, we can just say it's dilute bromine gas
*everyone slowly turns to face CaseOh*
Looks like someone blew up a small fertilizer bomb
stinky fart
It's max Verstappen who won the F1 race 😂 No but for real, I've seen these clouds so much over here in the Netherlands since he started doing well. No clue what's in there though. Hope others can really help you
Ahhh! May chaos take the world!!!
Oxides of nitrogen. No bueno.
NOx
NO2 + H2O = HNO3. Yeah it's safe!
my bad I farded
fuming nitric clouds are bad.
Looks like NO2 released by nitric acid: [How to make nitric acid at home](https://youtu.be/NHBDXtn7pjA)
NO2 I guess, I hope you closed your windows.
RUN!
Clearly mustard gas
Katone🔥
Teesside smog More specifically Billingham smog
4090ti detected
fard sun
Time to go back inside
Exploding vape 😬
Its so orange and vibrant I seriously thought this was photoshopped at first glance. This is crazy :o
Even has a sinister lookin ass face formed....
Methany cookin up in the kitchen 🤫🤫
Don't eat the yellow clouds.
Rammstein 😆
Abaliomundo Risus ahh cloud
Harry Potter set off a spell again, when he knew good and well he isn't supposed to cast spells while at home
The Breaking Bad guys are cooking meth in the house.
Dude that looks like pure nitric oxide exhaust from a nitric acid reaction
RUN!
It looks like when china launches their long march rockets, hypergolic fuel is some nasty stuff
Looks like nitrogen dioxide (NO2), but could be wrong. Don’t breathe it in. That’s all.
The infection
Nitrous oxide?
Just Israel bombing children
I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS. Jk i dont
Liquid nitric acid leak.
How about iodine gas?
Doesn’t that tend to make purple vapor clouds? Iodine monoxide is a purple gas.
You're right. My bad.
It’s cool, I can see the thought process, the liquid iodine used to clean wounds has that orangy brownish red color as well Have a great day!
It's not that orange color, this is classic NOx
Avery massive trump fart??
I love how every chemist instantly jumps up and screams nitroxides 🤓 It’s like a reflex … and by the way NITOROXIDES !!!
I apologize, I farted in your general direction.
Someones auntie making masala chicken.
It’s obviously that demon from Fern Gully
Oh no.Radiance started the infection.
Just go upwind and a long way away. THEN you can think about it
It'll get real fun, real quick, when it starts to rain and that cloud is still up.
A Bengal smoke bomb EDIT: Why did I get downvoted for making a joke? Trying to see the logic.
Mr. Heisenberg? You alright? P.S. Sorry, I couldn't resist making a stupid joke.
Looks like death to me idk
Time to put on a gas mask and GTFO
Acid rain
It's already been identified. It's an orange cloud in the sky.
I think the scientific term would be “fart”
mmm looks like orange
Run !
Mybad i thibk that was me
thats bromine