• Question: what is the most reactive substance in the world

    Asked by anon-270637 on 17 Nov 2020.
    • Photo: Gemma Chew

      Gemma Chew answered on 17 Nov 2020:

      My colleagues and I have enjoyed discussing this question! Probably one of the most reactive (and dangerous) chemicals is 1-diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole. I definitely wouldn’t want to work with that in the lab!
      (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1-Diazidocarbamoyl-5-azidotetrazole)

    • Photo: Joanna Giles

      Joanna Giles answered on 18 Nov 2020: last edited 18 Nov 2020 6:54 am

      I would say something of the radioactive too. Polonium has a very large and unstable nucleus and so breaks down spontaneously. It was the radioactive substance discovered by Marie Curie and it was used to trigger the first atomic bomb and is a deadly poison that has been used to assassinate (poison) spies in the past…. scary stuff! 😱

    • Photo: Kirsty Lindsay

      Kirsty Lindsay answered on 18 Nov 2020:

      Last years IAS Scientists discussed what the most reactive element in the body is:

      what is the most reactive element in the human body

    • Photo: Christopher Marriott

      Christopher Marriott answered on 18 Nov 2020:

      Hi Harvey, my go-to answer for this is always azidoazide azide, which can react explosively when it is heated, moved, or for absolutely no reason at all! If we’re looking at elements, then radioactive elements can be very VERY reactive too. Polonium is the most radioactive element found naturally, with the amount of polonium left unreacted halving every 138 days. We’ve also made some very radioactive isotopes, or elements with the number of neutrons altered, in labs around the world, the most reactive of which is hydrogen-7. This isotope loses half of its atoms every 0.000000000000000000000023 seconds, so if we had a gram of it then after a second we’d have next to none left!

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