Harmful Properties of a Gas Discovered in B.C.

It is not uncommon for gases to not behave how they are expected to. But this one certainly takes the cherry on top.

Last week, CBC released an article stating that British Columbia was taking the initiative in reducing the province's emissions of a particularly strong greenhouse gas. Nitrogen trifluoride (NF3) is a colourless gas that is often used in the manufacturing of smartphone, plasma television and laptop screens (known as Liquid Crystal Displays). This gas' harmful potential has been largely neglected until now, with reports from as late as 2016 deeming the compound "negligible". Ironically, NF3 began to be used because it was supposedly safer than alternative gases. As Tim Lesiuk, director of the B.C. Climate Action Secretariat, puts it, : "it is a little ironic. A lot of work went into trying to find gases that can be used to make things like solar panels and semiconductors that weren't greenhouse gases." However, there is very little of this gas produced both in B.C. and Canada, meaning that it has not done too much damage yet. Since the discovery of nitrogen triflouride's harmful properties, both Canada, China and California started to seek alternative gases to use in the production of tech products. Further testing has revealed that NF3 is up to 17 200 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

In Unit 4 of our textbook, we discussed how the properties of gases and relations between their volume, temperature, pressure and amount were slowly unraveled by many different scientists, often decades apart from the previous discovery or theory. As this issue demonstrates, our understanding of gases is not complete yet, and it is likely that any new properties of a gas will be discovered when they have already done some damage, as in the case of NF3. Our textbook also discussed that there is no such thing as a truly "ideal gas", which adds a hint of irony to this issue as researchers are similarly trying to find an ideal gas that can be used in manufacturing and will not cause harm to the environment. However, as the same overall laws given in Unit 4 still apply to NF3, it is likely that scientists will soon arrive at a convenient solution to deal with the emissions of nitrogen trifluoride efficiently, as they have done with other gases in the past.

Personally, I am glad for the initiative that Lesiuk and his team have taken towards solving the NF3 issue. I believe that it is important to fully test out substances (or the products of substances) before sending them out to factories and the market. It can be disheartening to see that so many substances who were previously thought to be safe are actually harmful. On top of that, most of them are gases such as nitrogen trifluoride, which as we know cannot exactly be put in a box and sent back to a factory to solve the issue. Once a gas is created, we can only wait until it dissipates, a time by which it will have already done damage. However, I do believe that there might be a gas out there that can be created and used without any negative effects. We just have to discover it.

What do you think about this issue? Should we try to synthesize a gas that can be used freely without causing any harmful effects, or does the solution lie in the controlled use of currently-known gases? Leave your thoughts below!

For more information, please visit http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/province-to-examine-source-of-potential-new-harmful-greenhouse-gas-emissions-1.4488387