how chemical burns work

1.03K views

how chemical burns work

In:

4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Chemical burns are a variety of different forms of damage caused by chemicals (as opposed to heat). Typically, it comes from damage to your cells caused by chemicals ranging from desiccants to acids.

Anonymous 0 Comments

[removed]

Anonymous 0 Comments

Tldr: The chemicals either cause heat that burns you or react with your nerves to trick them into thinking it’s hot.

Chemical burns are caused by very reactive (caustic) chemicals getting onto bare or under protected skin. Once on the skin they begin reacting with various different things on, in, or under your skin. Due the extremely vast range of potential chemicals and reactions that could and will take place it’s almost impossible to narrow it down too much but generally it falls into three categories.

Category 1
A chemical reacts with something on or in your skin that produces heat (exothermic). This heat then gets detected by the nerve endings and the body then reacts similarly to a regular burn you might get from a hot pan etc.

An example of this might be waving your hand through a fire. This is technically a chemical burn but probably not what most people think of when they hear the term, but I’m tired and that’s the only one I could think of right now.

Category 2
A chemical that reacts with the material of your skin and/or the nerve endings themselves. Some of these reactions actually cool the skin (for example hydrogen peroxide {~36% not the typical drug store stuff that’s ~3%}) but can still be very painful and produce notable discoloration etc. which we call a burn since that’s the closest thing that we can use to describe it. As having had some minor chemical burns, I can testify that while it may not be hot it definitely feels similar to a burn and is not exactly fun.

Another example of one of these is sodium hydroxide (lye), while the reaction is technically exothermic it’s not really enough to be noticeable, usually. The lye actually takes and starts turning the fat in and under your skin into soap which is both cool and horrifying but explains why it would hurt.

Category 3
Basically a mixture of Categories 1 and 2.

An example of this would be some of the Lewis super acids along with super strong oxidizers (particularly oxidizers that have the potential to create a pure oxygen environment such as Potassium permanganate). Potassium permanganate (KMnO4) could actually react so violently that it could set your actual skin on fire. Side note it’s also a very pretty purple color.

Anonymous 0 Comments

We are organic matter. Certain chemicals destroy organic matter. Thus, when we come in contact with the chemical, it destroys our flesh.