From the Editor
It is always astonishing how garbled, not to mention erroneous, information about chemistry can be. On a recent episode of a program about firefighters, the fire guys were battling a series of fires at laundromats. Turns out the fires started in the dryers...residue from a powdered detergent was left on the clothes and ignited in the dryer. In one scene, some powdered detergent was dumped on the ground and vapor from it ignited. Very mysterious...until the manufacturer realized that the blender had substituted methanol for sodium lauryl sulfate… !! What else can I say?
October 2021
The Southwest RETORT
17
