From an older article where he discusses how dangerous it can be to handle compounds with lots of nitrogen atoms (for non-chemists, they have a tendency to form nitrogen gas, which is very stable, and the excess bonding energy released when that happens is converted into "shrapnel and loud noises" as he puts it. The more nitrogen atoms, the bigger the bang.)
Quote:
A few years ago I saw some Israeli escape artists has prepared triazidomethane, which I wouldn't touch with somebody else's ten-foot titanium pole. One carbon, one hydrogen, and nine nitrogens - look at the time! Gotta run! But there's always worse. Just today I was reading a soon-to-be-published paper in Angewandte Chemie from some daredevils at USC. They've prepared titanium tetraazide, of all things. One titanium and twelve nitrogens: whoa! Podiatrist appointment! See you later!
You can isolate the stuff, it seems, as long as you handle it properly. It turns out that brutal treatments like, say, touching it with a spatula, or cooling down a vial of it in liquid nitrogen - you know, rough handling - make it detonate violently. I think that staring hard at it is OK, though. The authors recommend using everything you have for protection if you're zany enough to follow their lead: goggles, blast shield, face shield, leather suit (!) and ear plugs. Those last two suggestions are unique in my experience, and quite. . .evocative of what you have to look foward to with these compounds.