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.