Phosgene

riggie · Tue Aug 23, 2005 4:07 am

With my illgotten gains, I was able to aquire a nice, estate home in the middle of somewhere, far away. I have now discovered that moles are very active in my garden. I was thinking of gassing these critters away with phosgene. This is not sold here of course, we have hardly any chemical companies in this country. I got me some carbon tetrachloride and concentrated H2SO4. I was just wondering, if I really do the synth, would not also a lot of unreacted carbon tetrachloride evaporate with the evolving phosgene ? I assume strong smell of the carbon tetrachloride would surly scare the animals away before I would have gassed them. And I am not keen of trying out the synth and talking a whiff myself.
Since I am living in a warm country I tought diphosgene might work, it evaporates at 20 centigrades, so I just wait for a warm day to come....

Stinging_Nettle · Tue Aug 23, 2005 4:46 am

Are you trying to kill yourself? I mean I have heard of people spraying wasp killer in their own homes but this is just ridiculous.

primathon · modified

That's like using a brick to get a fly on the window. You crazy, crazy bastard...

icecool · Insistent Chemist

Phosgene is a chemical weapon......

riggie · Sat Aug 27, 2005 4:57 am

Gentlemen,
I feel I owe you an explanation. Please Understand that my house is placed upon a hill, which is more like a Swiss cheese now. There must be thousands of critters, happily digging underground. Now this would normally not bother me, the problem is, that the soil is lose already and with the heavy tropical rains, we have many landslides in this area. A couple of people got killed in my neighborhood this week. That's why I am looking for an effective measure to get rid of this pest. Thank you for your time.

java · Consumer

Exterminators use the canisters with the pellets of the compound you mentioned which is activated with water.........this is the best route and the safest............java

Bushroot · Sat Aug 27, 2005 3:15 pm

poor animals Smile

maybe you try gamma radiation also, to ensure none of those "critters" will escape? Smile

I thought you were trying that phosgene thing for some Vilsmayer formylation... It's a suicide as well, even with a fume hood

stratosphere · Sun Aug 28, 2005 9:52 am

actually i believe extertimators use pellets of AlP releasing phosphine on contact with atmospheric moisture.

bio · Working Bee

Riggie, the Al phosphide is a good one and readily available for pests,around here anyway. It comes in small aluminum tubes as granuals. It lasts a while depending on the humidity but if a mass gassing is what is needed HCN is the way to go.

Cheap, easy to make and dissipates very quickly. Safe if properly used, hell it's used in orchards to kill the scale bugs. I used it on a rat plague once with very good quick results.

Poor critters, I'm still losing sleep over it!

zub · Thu Sep 01, 2005 9:31 pm

using toxins in a garden isn't great science, if you want to eat the veggies.
there's lots of non-toxic approaches to mole control, including juicy-fruit gum.

methyl_ethyl · Riedel De Haen

[N-Methyl-2,4-dinitro-N-(2,4,6-tribromophenyl)-6-(trifluoromethyl)benzenamine]

this is what you want,

I always wondered about the juicy fruit lore. Something tells me a mole would not eat a stick of juicy fruit. Bug/Worm scented Big League Chew, perhaps, but not juicy fruit......

m_e

DrugPhreak · Working Bee

Forget the phosgene... use one of these...

loki · guinea pig

i don't see what the danger would be of using a phosphide, in the long term, the phosphine all gases off or oxidises to phos acids of some kind, of course not good to be breathing it, definitely take all the living things up the road when doing it and for a couple of hours at least, afterwards, pretty strong and distinctive smell though, you'd know if it wasn't ok to come back yet.

remember, phosphine is produced by peat bogs and marshes naturally.

phosphides are fairly easy to manufacture too, you could literally make it by baking bone at some temperature like 450 or something in a low oxygen environment... has to be kept dry though, water makes it react exothermically and produce phosphine and diphosphines.

zub · Sat Sep 03, 2005 6:43 am

moles love chewing gum. it makes them happy, and so they don't destroy your garden.

jokes aside, moles are sort of helpfull, and it is our knee-jerk desire to nuke everything we don't love or understand that is the real problem.

gimme mole death in an aerosal can.
or give me liberty.

(who said that?)

riggie · Mon Sep 05, 2005 8:06 am

Ok,
I got me as much cats now as possible (5). what they do, they catch and bring 8-12 moles and little mice every evening, which is nice and I don't have to feed them. So lets see if this will help. In the meanwhile I am closing the holes as good as I can. I wonder if these critters have no natural enemies. And why does the rain not flood their caves and drowns them?
The problem is that we have hardly no shops around which carry garden supplies.
I'll keep you posted.
Thank you!