High-Pressure Chemistry of Red Phosphorus and Water under Near-UV Irradiation

摘要

Phosphorus is a key element in chemistry, physics, and biology, as well as in Earth and planetary sciences. Among the allotropes of phosphorus, the white molecular form (P4), despite its extreme reactivity and toxicity, is currently preferred in industrial and research chemistry over the more-stable and less-toxic red polymeric one (P_(red)), because it is easily obtained and functionalized.The less-reactive red phosphorus has had much less importance so far and has been employed in the industry of matches and, to a lesser extent, to produce flame retardants in plastics and aluminum phosphide. In view of the intrinsic reduced toxicity, particularly for aquatic organisms, switching from the extremely toxic white to red phosphorus would benefit any industrial procedure for organophosphorus compounds, from an environmental viewpoint, and could attract a large interest from organophosphorus manufactories.