4.5 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 16 November 2023
⏱️ 28 minutes
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0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
0:04.6 | Hello, welcome to Inside Science. |
0:09.7 | Today I'm in London. |
0:11.0 | I'm visiting a laboratory where a hazardous substance is kept in carefully |
0:14.8 | controlled conditions. It's a chemical that's made headlines in the last week in connection |
0:19.4 | with the conflict in Gaza. It's called white phosphorus. |
0:23.0 | Now you won't find this extremely flammable element in many labs, |
0:27.0 | but here at University College London, it's used in research. |
0:30.0 | So we've come to find out what is this stuff, why is it so dangerous and how would you know if it was being used? |
0:37.0 | Andrea Sella is professor of chemistry here at UCL and he's going to give us a lesson in the fundamental chemistry of a substance with a long and fiery history. |
0:45.7 | So let's head inside. |
0:51.7 | Andrea Sala, hello, how are you doing? It's great to see you Vic. |
0:55.0 | Yeah, good to see you too. Thank you so much for inviting us. |
0:57.5 | So we're getting our lab coats on and eye protection and then can we go into your chemistry? |
1:02.9 | Absolutely, I think we should just go through the door |
1:05.1 | and into the lab. |
1:09.7 | Thank you. |
1:10.7 | The soundscape is really quite different. |
1:13.0 | Lots of extraction. |
1:14.0 | We turn over the air and hear quite a lot. |
1:16.8 | We want to talk to you as a chemist about white phosphorus just to find out what it is. What can you tell us and what can you show us in your |
1:24.0 | chemistry lab about white phosphorus? From a chemist's point of view, it's kind of a |
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