Misc. Ozone calculations

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Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla@uswest.net>" <NuclearFirestorm@aol.com>

In response to Re: Third try at first light / ozone

In my merck index the following info can be found:
It occurs at sea level in concentrations of  .05 ppm,  pleasent smell less 
than 2ppm, the smell of rain maybe?

Using their data for the heat of formation, I calculate the energy needed to 
create ozone to be 3000.65 joules per gram.

To create one cubic meter of 50 ppm ozone air one would only need .3213 
joules used in making ozone.   That is .00010709 mg per liter for a one hour 
exposure.  For one hour fatalities hydrogen cyanide needs to be at .03333 mg 
per liter and Sarin nerve gas at .01166mg per liter this makes ozone 311 
times more powerful than HCN and 109 times more toxic than nerve gas.  These 
calculations were made using figures from "Chemical Warfare Agents Toxicology 
and Treatment" .

Even ignoring my possibly errored calculations above, simply comparing the 
extreme high and low figures for nerve gas versus hydrogen cyanide shows that 
Sarin nerve gas is only between 3 and 30 times as toxic as cyanide gas.

I now have the calculations to say what I was when first writing this e-mail. 
 Those figures for ozone are way overblown.  Ozone, would likely break up 
quickly in the body and even if it didn't it only can work by a general lung 
injurant method.  Where as in nerve gas a single molecule disables a rare 
enzyme in the nervous system.  Obviously a more potent method for a substance 
to kill by.

Just a thought, Matt Massey