Our 61st addition to our element cube product line is phosphorus. Although a very useful material phosphorus has come afoul of US regulations because it has unfortunately been found to be a key ingredient in making meth. So thanks to low rent junkies the procurement of this otherwise basic element is artificially difficult and expensive to acquire.

Typically seen as the dark red strip on matchbooks, phosphorus comes as a red powder that looks like pulverized terracotta and smells like garlic bread. Unlike the clay that it looks like it decidedly doesn't want to be formed into shapes. Merely clumping it together works much the same way as does dry sand. Our first cubes used a binding agent which did the trick well but at the expense of both density and overall purity. Starting in late 2021 a new method solved this tricky problem and finally achieved essentially pure phosphorus. While the lab did not disclose the process the likely solution was to subject the starting powder to extreme pressure and heat under in an airless environment to prevent them from auto-igniting.

Your kitchen matches and these cubes are basically one and the same thing. Treating them with the same care as any other highly flammable material ensures your set doesn’t turn into an unwelcome 4th of July show. Just keeping them in the included acrylic box for long term storage should be enough but as an added dash of caution keep them well away from sources of heat too.