"Cute poison" was one of the people in Michael Scofield's escape plan chain, our main character in the first season of Prison Break. In the relevant episode, we saw Michael pour some chemicals into a drain. But we didn't see enough explanation for those chemicals and how those chemicals worked. Now we will study together what these chemicals are and how they have an effect together.
Note: This post doesn't drink big spoilers about the Prison Break series. The chemical process that will be mentioned is realized in the early episodes of the series and does not have a huge impact on the story.
What Is Cute Poison?
First, we will start with where this term comes from. Scofield beat this up like everything else. Cute Poison is an acronym for essential chemicals.
- Cu: Copper
- PO: Phosphate
- SO: Sulfate
Phosphoric acid
One of the chemicals used in the relevant section is phosphoric acid. Phosphoric acid is a weak acid (i.e. it does not fully decompose into its ions in water). It is mainly used in various fields such as soaps, detergents, food industry and toothpastes. Michael Scofield supplied the phosphoric acid from the wall cleaner.
Copper Sulfate
Copper sulfate is used in agriculture as fungicide (chemicals used to kill fungi), algae killer, root dryer, weed killer. The uses of individual products containing copper sulfate are very diverse. Copper sulfate is used in anhydrous form, as an additive for fertilizers and foods, and as a desiccant in various industrial applications such as textiles, leather, wood, batteries, ink, petroleum, paint, and metal. Michael supplied the copper sulfate from the root dryer.
Sulfuric Acid
The chemical needed for the original plan was sulfuric acid. Sulfuric acid is a strong acid. In other words, it can completely decompose into ions in water. Constantine sulfuric acid draws water from some of the organic substances and creates an exothermic reaction. It is also very dangerous to add water to sulfuric acid. The added water vapor evaporates under the influence of heat. If water is suddenly added to the acid, the water vapor trying to get out can spread the acid around. For this reason, it is a chemical that needs to be careful when working on it.
It is colorless, high density and highly corrosive, i.e. corrosive. That's what our main characters need: abrasiveness. Sulfuric acid would gradually erode the metal pipe, allowing the team to break the metal pipe on the night of the escape. Although chemistry always results as planned, things don't always go as planned...
Result
"Cute Poison", that is, sweet poison, is an expression that has a scientific basis. In this article, we made a short statement for those who cannot understand what is going on while watching the series. In the relevant section, the power of sulfuric acid is described very well. Enough sulfuric acid can even erode a huge metal pipe when it's in place. So we strongly recommend not to try it at home.