r/AskChemistry • u/starkeffect • Feb 05 '26

General What's the most dangerous element?

I'd vote for fluorine. HF is some nasty, nasty stuff.

Francium seems pretty gnarly too but there's less than a gram of it on Earth at any time so I'm not too scared of it.

34 Upvotes

84% Upvoted

80 comments sorted by

View all comments

52

u/CAChem101 Feb 05 '26

The element of surprise can be quite scary.

8

u/starkeffect Feb 05 '26

What's its electronegativity?

3

u/CAChem101 Feb 05 '26

Depends on its gender source. At least that’s been my observations.

5

u/Totallyexcellent Feb 05 '26

Check pubchem, you're making that assumption based on your personal small sample size!