– Marketing, meet chemistry: If it never occurred to you to put someone with a chemistry background on your marketing team, maybe it should now. The people behind a Jägermeister-sponsored party involving a pool thought it would be a cool effect to have mist coming off the water. When I think “mist,” I think dry ice, which is basically carbon dioxide frozen solid. It requires temperatures of about −78.5 °C (−109.3 °F).

For this party, though, it was definitely go big or go home. They apparently used liquid nitrogen, which requires a brisk −195.79 °C (−320 °F)—this is why it’s the mechanism of choice in Hollywood for freezing people and smashing heads or limbs (or, if it’s a Friday the 13th movie set in outer space, a hot blonde’s face ← do not click that link.)

Now, as you probably know, swimming pool water contains chlorine, usually calcium hypochlorite or a similar compound. The chlorine compound used in swimming pools tends to react with liquid nitrogen to form nitrogen trichloride, which has the properties of tear gas and can cause neurological damage. Continue reading →