Phosphene gas

Patricia Garland <patricia.garland [at] yale__edu> writes

>Does anyone know anything about phosphene gas? I know that it is
>used in the food industry, but I have a client who has some
>paintings down in Jamaica and someone there proposes using this gas
>as way to eradicate drywood termites.

I did a quick web search for phosphene out of curiosity--very nasty
stuff. However, there is also a "phosphine gas" used in commercial
fumigation. See <URL:http://www.phosphine.com> for a quick overview.
Unfortunately it too seems somewhat unpleasant--it is also a fairly
powerful poison.

If the infested article is not too large, why not use anoxia to
destroy the insects? More at <URL:http://www.keepsafe.ca/> and
elsewhere (CoOL: <URL:http://palimpsest.stanford.edu/> )

Jerry Shiner
Keepsafe Systems
800-683-4696


                                  ***
                  Conservation DistList Instance 17:3
                   Distributed: Friday, June 20, 2003
                        Message Id: cdl-17-3-007
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