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Wednesday 15 April 2009

Chemistry: NFPA 704


If you have ever seen or worked with chemicals you've probably seen one of these. This is a NFPA 704 or "fire diamond". NFPA stands for National Fire Protection Association. The "fire diamond" used by emergency personnel to quickly and easily identify the risks posed by nearby hazardous materials

This is what it means:

Blue: Health
0 - Poses no health hazard, no precautions necessary.
1 - Exposure would cause irritation with only minor residual injury
2 - Intense or continued but not chronic exposure could cause temporary incapacitation or possible residual injury
3 - Short exposure could cause serious temporary or moderate residual injury
4 - Very short exposure could cause death or major residual injury

Red: Flammability
0 - Will not burn.
1 - Must be heated before it can ignite.
2 - Must be moderately heated or exposed to relatively high ambient temperature before ignition can occur.
3 - Liquids and solids that can be ignited under almost all ambient temperature conditions.
4 - Is readily dispersed in air and will burn readily.

Yellow: Instability/Reactivity
0 - Normally stable, even under fire exposure conditions, and is not reactive with water.
1 - Normally stable, (but can become unstable at elevated temperatures and pressures).
2 - Undergoes violent chemical change at elevated temperatures and pressures, reacts violently with water, or may form explosive mixtures with water.
3 - Capable of detonation or explosive decomposition but requires a strong initiating source, must be heated under confinement before initiation, reacts explosively with water, or will detonate if severely shocked.
4 - Readily capable of detonation or explosive decomposition at normal temperatures and pressures.

The white diamond is something that makes the compound especially dangerous. In this case the compound reacts with water.

Sources:
Wikipedia
Wikimedia Commons

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I am a grade nine student living in Mexico. This is my home school education blog. I post the things I learned during the week on this blog. I hope you can learn things from this too.




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