Diphosphane as igniter for dragon breath

By Ricarda Dormeyer (radormey@cip.informatik.uni-erlangen.de)

An article written by a renowned chemist (well... he's actually a chemistry student, at the moment) who
happens to be my brother. Here you are:

The Contribution of Diphosphane to the Fire-Breathing Mechanism of Dragons

By Matthias Dormeyer; translated into English by Ingeborg Denner
It is a relatively common theory that the "biogas" methane (CH4) acts as fuel for the dragon fire (see 1).
But until now the cause for the ignition was unknown. This paper discusses the theory that dragons use a
simple chemical process, the auto-ignition of diphosphane.
Diphosphane is a colourless liquid that boils at a temperature of 51.7 C (125 F). Contrary to
monophosphane (PH3), diphosphane is pyrophoric (self-igniting) in the open air.
Biogenic phosphanes were first described at the beginning of the century, but their existence was
questioned for a long time. Not before 1988 an Hungarian working group succeeded in detecting
phosphane in digester gas. Later it could be shown that phosphanes are naturally occuring always together
with methane.
Assuming that dragons developed a mechanism to enzymatically reduce the absorbed phosphate on a
great scale to diphosphane, we can presume a mixture of diphosphane and methane being the burning agent
of dragon fire, with diphosphane, present in low concentration, acting as an igniter.
From this theory some interesting ideas concerning the biology of dragons can be derived.
For example, it supports the theory that dragons are homothermals with an extremely high body
temperature, since only then can be ensured that gaseous
diphosphane is present. An alternative idea would be that dragons breathe a very fine diphosphane fog
along with the methane.
Most heavy natural methane producers are herbivores, such as cows. On the other hand, omnivores (e.g.
pigs) produce significally more phosphane (The amount of phosphane in the liquid manure of pigs is one
hundred times as much as that of cows). So dragons are possibly omnivores that eat large quantities of
vegetable food to ensure a high methane-content as well as a high content of diphosphane.
Since in nature not diphosphane but monophosphane is mainly produced, it is possible that dragons
produce both compounds. Since monophosphane is a colourless, genotoxic, alliaceous smelling gas, the
lethal effect of dragon breath can be explained this way.
Eventually I want to point out that the theory of diphosphane as biogenic igniter of the dragon fire was
introduced in 1993 by Gassmann and Glindemann (see 3).
Bibliography:
1 R. S. Wolfe, Adv. Microb. Physiol. 1971, 6, 109-122.
2 I. Devai, L. Feldfoeldy, I. Wittner, S. Plosz, Nature 1988, 333, 343-345.
3 G. Grassmann, D. Glindemann, Angew. Chem. 1993, 105, 749-751.