Reply To: T-shirt designers unite and take over

[Lerner]

Let us be clear about decaborane. This is a solid at room temperature. At 100 F, about as hot as it gets in our environment, the vapor pressure of decaborane amounts to 1.6 mg per cubic meter of air. The NIOSH Immediate danger to life and health (IDLH) level for decaborane is 15 mg per cubic meter of air, almost ten times higher. What this means is that you can’t get to that level even if you spill the decaborane on the floor. The IDLH level was determined strictly by tests on small animals. There is no data for humans, because it is very hard to kill people with decaborane gas.

Iodine, which is just about as toxic in gaseous form, has a vapor pressure at 100 F that is about 300 times higher than decaborane.

The only real danger is from fire and the decaborane is very well protected inside the meter-thick water shield. Much better protected than , I suspect , hoptial supplies of iodine.