Alarium

Well Fluorine, and Chlorine are both members of group 17 on the periodic table. Fluorine is the most reactive of the non-metals, and chlorine is close behind. If you were to put fluorine in a container with HCl a single displacement reaction would occur, causing the Chlorine leave as a gas again.

Liquid! Liquid! Liquid! *runs off before he can be contradicted*

Well, thanks for that. I'll check into it. I did find out from the teacher who gave me the assignment basically why it eats through the glass. What he said is that it basically does something to disloge the oxygen in the glass (made of silicon di-oxide), thus eating through the glass. And I from reading about flourine I've found that I don't think I ever want to use it. Too dangerous with fumes, strenth etc. The strongest acid I've ever had to use was an 18m sulfuric acid. It was being used as a catalyst in making esters.

I've been assigned for a school thing to find out what hydrofluoric acid can be contained in and why. I've found that it can be contained in polyethylene containers, now I just need to find why. I haven't been able to do so yet. Does anyone know the reason for this? Also, it can't be contained in glass containers because it is one of the things used to etch glass, I need to know why this is as well.

Well, glass is technically a supercooled liquid. Amorphous means, "having no fixed form or shape," quoted from the Cambridge International Dictionary of English website. So, liquid is amorphous as well, yet there are amorphous solids such as clay. Glass does fit into that catagory. I guess it's a bit of an enigma to have it fit in both catagories. But, from the references that I've seen, they mainly classify it as a liquid.