Can Chemicals Cut Through Hardened Steel?

[wolram]

I have a bet that no chemical can cut through hardened steel like in the movies, will i loose?

 

[LtStorm]

There are some wicked reagents out there that can eat steel up pretty quick. Could you better define how you mean by 'in the movies'?

Not to mention stuff like a Thermite reaction that can quickly melt through steel just using gravity and a glob of molten hot iron and aluminum.

 

[wolram]

There are some wicked reagents out there that can eat steel up pretty quick. Could you better define how you mean by 'in the movies'?

Not to mention stuff like a Thermite reaction that can quickly melt through steel just using gravity and a glob of molten hot iron and aluminum.

The secret agent has a phial of chemical , that will cut through the lock in seconds.

 

[LtStorm]

I don't know about exact rates, but a vial of freshly prepared http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_water" could probably do it pretty quickly. Of course, this is ignoring the problems of applying the reagent to the lock, and is assuming something like a padlock where it could be poured directly onto the small locking arm to eat up/weaken that enough that it can be snapped off by hand.

Injecting it with a pipette into any other kind of key lock would certainly wreck the mechanism, but may or may not make it easier to open...

 

[lightarrow]

Royal water is good if you can heat it; at cold is better to have more HNO3 than HCl and add also HF; with this mix you can dissolve easily (but not as quickly as in movies) even stainless steel.
Don't breath the acid vapours.