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Extinction Rebellion claims responsibility for chemical-filled balloon attack targeting Microsoft datacenter project (techwerkers.nl)
submitted 3 months ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://piefed.world/c/tech/p/1267315/extinction-rebellion-claims-responsibility-for-chemical-filled-balloon-attack-targeting

Press Release.

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[–] 36 points 3 months ago (12 children)

They threw balloons over the fence to weaken concrete with Salt, Acetic Acid, Peroxide, and acrylic paint at some bare concrete and steel where a facility is going to be built.

I feel like the guy with the paint didn't understand the memo.

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  • [–] 24 points 3 months ago (7 children)

    I feel like none of these things will actually weaken concrete, unless it’s being added to the concrete mix itself.

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  • [–] 31 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    The concrete is actually highly acidic but the outer layer cures to become alkaline and the two layers together end up becoming water resistant, so by adding acid to the surface it can lose its water repellent capability and weaken faster.

    If the concrete were sealed with a wax or an acrylic then Acetone would also be effective.

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  • [–] 11 points 3 months ago (5 children)

    Oh really? I honestly never considered that possibility and always thought of concrete as a kind of inert “stone,” I find this legitimately interesting.

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  • [–] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    My understanding is that the genius of such attacks is they don't actually have to do the damage but if there's the fear of chemical damage you don't want to build the rest of a building on top of it.

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  • [–] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Sugar water would have worked better.

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  • [–] 6 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

    Just needs a supply of Dioxygen difluoride Chlorine trifluoride [ref] which when spilled in large quantities "burned its way through a foot of concrete floor and chewed up another meter of sand and gravel beneath"

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  • [–] 7 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    A quick visit to wikipedia gives me this lovely paragraph which makes me nervous:

    The other main property of this unstable compound is it's oxidizing power, although most experimental reactions have been conducted near -100 °C (173 K). Several experiments with the compound resulted in a series of fires and explosions. Some of the compounds that produced violent reactions with O2F2 include ethyl alcohol, methane, ammonia, and even water ice.

    Flourine is really scary stuff. If we're going to toss some FOOF at the concrete, we could also use ClF3. Clorine Triflouride is another angry oxidizer that I'm pretty sure is hypergolic with sand of all things.

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