Zirconium gas

Zirconium gas corrodes micro-circuitry. It's utilized somehow in the use of plutonium to generate power.

Fiction

2001 Robots in Disguise cartoon

During a Predacon attack, Optimus Prime warned Side Burn that if the Plutonium Energy Generator was damaged, it would leak dangerous zirconium gas. Despite rough treatment when it was later grabbed by the Predacons, the generator was fortunately not damaged, even after it spent time being gripped in the jaws of a giant robot shark. Spychangers to the Rescue

Beast Wars: Uprising

In the final days of the Grand Uprising, Resistance soldiers managed to break into the High Pavilion. One of the building's hallways was flooded with zirconium gas as part of a trap meant to take out the Angry Asteroids as they made their way in. Hidden auto-guns popped out behind them, preventing them from turning back, and the deadly gas forced them to push down the corridor straight into an ambush. The survivors broke through when their leader blew himself up with a grenade, taking his attackers with him. Derailment

Notes

• As the boiling point of zirconium is 7968 °F or 4409 °C, one assumes that it's hazardous to things other than micro-circuitry.
• The zirconium gas being an important hazard in the above Robots in Disguise episode was originally not present in its initial airing. Originally, the threat of the generator exploding was the real danger (as was the case for the Japanese Car Robots version of the episode), but after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the episode was pulled from rotation for a redubbing that changed all lines of dialogue that were deemed unsuitable at the time. In the new dub's removing all references to the generator exploding, the circuit-corroding zirconium gas was invented as an acceptable replacement danger.

External links

• Zirconium at Wikipedia