Carbon Tetrachloride Health and Safety Guide: Health and Safety Guide 108

Carbon tetrachioride is a volatile, colourless, clear, heavy liquid with a characteristic sweet, non-irritant odour. The odour threshold in water is 0.52 mg/litre, and in air it is >64.1 mg/m3 (10 ppm). Carbon tetrachioride is miscible with most aliphatic solvents and it is a solvent itself. The solubility in water is low. It is non-flammable and fairly stable in the presence of air and light. Decomposition of carbon terachloride forms phosgene, carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid. It reacts explosively with aluminium powder and some other reactive metals, and, in the presence of peroxides or light, with unsaturated compounds.