The National Police have removed more than three kilos of picric acid, a toxic and potentially explosive substance, from the laboratories of three schools and from the storage room of a private home in Palma. The events took place on Tuesday 17 December, after the agents of Citizen Participation alerted the Ministry of Education and Universities of the Government of the danger of this chemical.
According to the Balearic Police Headquarters, three schools contacted the agents to hand over two jars each containing less than 50 grams of humidified picric acid. This substance, crystallised by evaporation of water, had been delivered 30 years ago for use as a reagent in school laboratories and was now disused.
In addition, approximately three kilos of this acid in powder form were collected in the storage room of a home in Palma, from the remains of the stock that was stored there. It was the owners who, after reading news in the press warning of its dangerousness and given the fact that they had stopped marketing the substance, decided to notify the agents so that they could remove it.
All the removals were carried out by Tedax agents, specialists in explosive and incendiary devices, always taking the relevant security measures. According to the police, picric acid or trinitrophenol is a substance that must be handled under safety measures, being classified as explosive when it is in a dry state, but not when it is wetted in water. It is also toxic by skin contact, ingestion or inhalation. It has various uses in a laboratory and has been used as an explosive charge in projectiles.
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