Word: phosphorus
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There are plenty of propellants that burn when brought in contact with water, e.g., metallic potassium, sodium, white phosphorus, various metallic hydrides. Some of these can be used in convenient liquid form. When such fuels hit water, they decompose it violently by uniting with its oxygen, giving off heat and a large volume of hydrogen gas. The combustion chamber is shaped so as to make the expanding water-and-gas mixture shoot out the rear opening as a high-speed jet. The reaction from this drives the engine (and the torpedo) forward...
...technique consists of using a Geiger counter to locate and outline abnormal tissue in which has been built up a concentration of radioactive phosphorus. A new type of counter the size of a pencil was specially designed for this purpose...
...Superfort over Japan, Staff Sergeant Henry E. Erwin, of Alabama, picked up a burning phosphorus bomb with his bare hands, tossed it out a copilot's open window. Despite his searing burns, Erwin lived to have the Medal of Honor pinned on his bandages. Sergeant Thomas A. Baker, of New York, severely wounded on Saipan, refused to retreat, was left propped against a tree, with a pistol containing eight rounds. Later, when his body and empty pistol were found, eight Japanese lay dead around...
...detergent Santomerse, developed to make water "wetter," was found to be useful for leather and fur processing, railroad car cleaning and bubble baths). He also spent heavily on basic research. Result: Monsanto today makes 14 different raw materials for plastics, leads the world in production of lampblack and elemental phosphorus, turns out some 500 chemicals that other companies use in 20,000 different industrial processes...
...long, the chemists think, before radioactive tracers are used to control industrial processes. Bessemer converters, for instance, burn impurities out of molten iron with a blast of air. Usually the phosphorus is the last impurity to go. The Little scientists propose that a small amount of radioactive phosphorus be added to the mix. When it (and the ordinary phosphorus with it) has been burned out of the steel, automatic instruments will note instantaneously the drop in radioactivity. Then the air blast can be shut off at exactly the right moment...