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mechanical_fish | 11 years ago

It's true, it is easy to get carried away by the fact that the Leidenfrost effect can protect you from small splashes of nitrogen on your skin. As the demos show, it's even possible to dip a BARE hand in... very briefly. For the love of god, don't do this while wearing a ring or a glove.

It's objects that are the problem, because they do not evaporate and they do not flow away. One of the worst is cloth, which tends to be wrapped around your skin, so when it gets soaked in LN it promptly gets super cold and then sits there burning you while you try to get it off. I got a tiny splash on one of my socks once. Fortunately it wasn't a big enough splash to do more than sting a lot and teach me never to splash LN on my clothing again.

And, as you point out, the other problem is that protective gloves are essential for handling cold solid objects, but very dangerous to have on your hands when touching the liquid. Which means you need tongs! Long tongs, so that your gloved hand stays safely at one end while the other end is fishing around in the nitrogen.

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