7/26/2019 The Contribution of Diphosphane to the Fire-Breathing
Mechanism of Dragons
1/2
Diphosphane as igniter for dragon breathBy Ricarda Dormeyer
([email protected])
An article written by a renowned chemist (well... he's actually
a chemistry student, at the moment) who
happens to be my brother. Here you are:
The Contribution of Diphosphane to the Fire-Breathing Mechanism
of Dragons
By Matthias Dormeyer; translated into English by Ingeborg
Denner
It is a relatively common theory that the "biogas" methane (CH4)
acts as fuel for the dragon fire (see 1).
But until now the cause for the ignition was unknown. This paper
discusses the theory that dragons use a
simple chemical process, the auto-ignition of diphosphane.
Diphosphane is a colourless liquid that boils at a temperature
of 51.7 C (125 F). Contrary to
monophosphane (PH3), diphosphane is pyrophoric (self-igniting)
in the open air.
Biogenic phosphanes were first described at the beginning of the
century, but their existence was
questioned for a long time. Not before 1988 an Hungarian working
group succeeded in detectingphosphane in digester gas. Later it
could be shown that phosphanes are naturally occuring always
together
with methane.
Assuming that dragons developed a mechanism to enzymatically
reduce the absorbed phosphate on a
great scale to diphosphane, we can presume a mixture of
diphosphane and methane being the burning agent
of dragon fire, with diphosphane, present in low concentration,
acting as an igniter.
From this theory some interesting ideas concerning the biology
of dragons can be derived.
For example, it supports the theory that dragons are
homothermals with an extremely high body
temperature, since only then can be ensured that gaseous
diphosphane is present. An alternative idea would be that
dragons breathe a very fine diphosphane fog
along with the methane.
Most heavy natural methane producers are herbivores, such as
cows. On the other hand, omnivores (e.g.
pigs) produce significally more phosphane (The amount of
phosphane in the liquid manure of pigs is one
hundred times as much as that of cows). So dragons are possibly
omnivores that eat large quantities of
vegetable food to ensure a high methane-content as well as a
high content of diphosphane.
Since in nature not diphosphane but monophosphane is mainly
produced, it is possible that dragonsproduce both compounds. Since
monophosphane is a colourless, genotoxic, alliaceous smelling gas,
the
lethal effect of dragon breath can be explained this way.
Eventually I want to point out that the theory of diphosphane as
biogenic igniter of the dragon fire was
introduced in 1993 by Gassmann and Glindemann (see 3).
Bibliography:1 R. S. Wolfe, Adv. Microb. Physiol. 1971, 6,
109-122.
2 I. Devai, L. Feldfoeldy, I. Wittner, S. Plosz, Nature 1988,
333, 343-345.3 G. Grassmann, D. Glindemann, Angew. Chem. 1993, 105,
749-751.
