All posts by Ralph Stuart

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Improve Your Lab’s Safety Webinar Extended Cut Available!

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People who watched the webinar on How to Improve Your Lab’s Safety that the Division co-sponsored in January may be interested to know that the ACS Webinar program has released an “extended cut” version of that webinar.

In this version, we have added responses to a group of questions that we weren’t able to answer in the time allotted in January. The new questions include:

  • Where can I learn more about a system of classification for chemical storage?
  • What are effective ways of getting administration and other departments (like biology) on board with a consistent safety message and culture when old habits are so ingrained and funding is limited?
  • How do we apply a hazard assessment teaching method to a regulatory environment that requires rule based documentation?
  • Do you have any recommendations for safety glasses use in a space that is mixed office and lab use?
  • Do you think they should be manditory at all times if your at your desk in a lab?
  • Does anyone have a good definition of what qualifies as a “near-miss”?  
  • How do you define safety culture as opposed to compliance?

Also, notice that there is a survey question that we would like people’s responses to. Even if you don’t take the time to watch the whole webinar again, please respond to that question so that the Division can continue to improve our member services. 

Please answer this question online

And spread the word to others who may be interested – the webinar is free for anyone to watch.
Thanks for your interest in this!

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JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight: Catching Up With Runaway Hot Plates

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The JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight for the March / April 2019 issue of the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety is shining on:

Catching up with Runaway Hot Plates, by Joseph M. Pickel, Mark Mathews, and Kimberly Brown

In recent years, there have been numerous reports of “runaway hot plates”. This is to say, hot plates that heat uncontrollably regardless of the temperature setting or whether the controls are in the off position. Some of these events have resulted in injuries to laboratory personnel and damage to research facilities. Investigations into the cause of several of these events have determined that failure of a non-mechanical switch, a “triac”, in the hot plate can result in the circuit failing open, causing uncontrolled heating. The number of events in recent years has led to greater awareness of the issue; however, in spite of this, devices utilizing this technology continue to be sold and used in research laboratories without additional controls to ensure their safety.

You can download the paper here:

Catching Up with Runaway Hot PlatesDownload

Other articles in this issue of JCHAS include:

An evaluation of engineered nanomaterial safety data sheets for safety and health information post implementation of the revised hazard communication standard
Laura Hodson, Adrienne Eastlake, Richard Herbers

Evaluation of emissions and exposures at workplaces using desktop 3-dimensional printers
A.B. Stefaniak, A.R. Johnson, S. du Preez, D.R. Hammond, J.R. Wells, J.E. Ham, R.F. LeBouf, K.W. Menchaca, S.B. Martin, M.G. Duling, L.N. Bowers, A.K. Knepp, F.C. Su, D.J. de Beer, J.L. du Plessis

A retrospective analysis of compensable injuries in university research laboratories and the possible prevention of future incidents
Abha Gosavi, Markus Schaufele, Michael Blayney

Safe plunge freezing
Robert C. Klein, Brent Lewchik, Simon White

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Fancy Nails in the Lab

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A colleague from Mexico recently wrote to the DCHAS-L list:

Hello everyone,

We have seen that some students and teachers use quite long fancy nails while working in the lab. This topic was the object of a discussion in UNISON (University of Sonora). The arguments included the respect of the person to use that type of nails. However, it was also commented that it is a risk for those who use those fantasy nails and also for those who are working around them in the lab.

What is your opinion about it? Have you implemented any policy in this regard? Best regards,

Rossy
Dra. Clara Rosalía Álvarez Chávez
Profesora de Tiempo Completo
Universidad de Sonora Hermosillo, Son. México

Dra. Clara Rosalía Álvarez Chávez collected the responses to inquiry as well as key literature references into a Powerpoint report for her colleagues in Mexico and also shared the results with us.

You can download her report here :

Unas de fantasia en el LaboratorioDownload
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Periodic Table of the elements of safety

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Note: the August, 2019 version of the Periodic Table of the Elements of Safety is available at https://dchas.org/2019/08/19/periodic-table-of-safety-elements-updated/

In celebration of the International Year of the Periodic Table, the Department of Environmental Health and Safety of Princeton University, led by Jim Sturdivant and Chelsea McDonnell (pictured above) and the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety developed a “Periodic Table of the Elements of Safety” to share with the chemistry community.

We believe that this layout of key lab hazards and safety management techniques in a familiar Periodic Table format can be an important teaching and reference tool for people as they conduct hazard assessments in the laboratory. It provides an overview of many of the elements these assessments should consider in an “at a glance” format.

This table also recognizes the elements of a chemical laboratory safety culture by identifying key innovators, leaders and victims of laboratory chemistry work over the history of laboratory science. We believe that an ongoing reminder that laboratory safety is both a technical and cultural challenge supports a generative safety culture described in the National Academy of Sciences report on Safe Science.

You can download the periodic table itself in PDF format suitable for printing on 18″ x 24″ paper hereDownload
You can download an explanation of the various Safety Elements we chose to include hereDownload
You can download the periodic table itself in PDF format suitable for printing on 11″ x 17″ paper hereDownload

You can also explore the different sections of the table with this interactive “hot spot” graphic.

We realize that you may have questions, comments or ideas for improving our first version of this table. Please let us know what you think at membership@dchas.org

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Explosive precursor safety: An application of the Deming Cycle for continuous improvement

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The Editor’s Spotlight for the January / February 2019 issue of the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety is shining on: Explosive precursor safety: An application of the Deming Cycle for continuous improvement by Hugo Schmidt who is affiliated with Cambridge CARES in Singapore.

The abstract for this article is:
General safety regulations need to follow a ‘one size fits all’ model, which may lead them to inadequately address challenges posed by different individual use scenarios. Hence, the regulatory requirements are best regarded as an essential minimum level of safety; further improvement essential. Discussed here is a model for developing an explosive precursor safety system. With the Singapore legal requirements for an explosive precursor as the minimum, the Deming Cycle for continuous improvement was used to develop a fully mature safety program, across two Plan-Do-Check-Act cycles that incorporated feedback and observation of continuous practice.

You can access this article at the link below and other articles from
the JCHAS web page

Explosive precursor safety: An application of the Deming Cycle for continuous improvementDownload
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A note on chemical storage cabinets

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While talking with our chemistry lab coordinator about the best approach to organizing their chemical storage cabinets, I made an interesting observation that might be of interest to other laboratory workers and safety professionals.

Our laboratory building was renovated in the 2004 and the labs were newly constructed then. So the cabinetry is about 14 years old, which I consider relatively new for laboratory architecture and casework.

The chemical storage provided under the fume hoods in our teaching labs consist of two wooden cabinets – one for storage of corrosive chemicals, which is ventilated, and the other for storage of flammable cabinets, which is not (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Fume hoods and storage cabinets; ventilated corrosives cabinet on left and unventilated flammables cabinet on right

One particular cabinet has been used for long term storage (i.e. more than one year) of a variety of concentrated acids. While we were looking inside that cabinet, we noticed that the hinges had corroded in an interesting way (see Figure 2).

Figure 2: Upper hinges of the acid storage cabinet were significantly more corroded than the lower hinges. See graphic at top of the page for a close-up view of the various hinges. From left to right is the upper hinge and lower hinge of the acid storage cabinet; the third hinge was in an adjacent corrosives cabinet.

Figure 3: On closer inspection, we realized that the ventilation provided for the cabinet only served the lower shelf. While both shelves stored similar amounts of acids, the ventilation provided was not serving the top shelf well. And 10 or so years of acid storage had taken a toll on the cabinet’s hardware.

I learned three things from this observation:

  • Air moves where it wants to, not where you think it will (see, for example, the presentation on air flow in flammable storage cabinets done at NIOSH and presented at the CHAS fall meeting in 2017).
  • Volatile chemicals don’t stay in their containers as long as you think they might. A Sigma-Aldrich representative once told me that they expected their caps to contain volatile chemicals for about a year.
  • Planning your long term chemical storage involves a variety of considerations beyond chemical compatibility – air flow patterns among them.

I’d be interested to hear if from people have similar war stories or other practical observations related to chemical storage in labs.

Ralph Stuart, Chemical Hygiene Officer
Keene State College
ralph.stuart@keene.edu

About Us

SDS 23 Years Later updated with survey results!

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In the December, 1995 issue of the Division’s Journal of Chemical Health and Safety, Neal Langerman reported on a survey he conducted among industrial clients of his company about the value of MSDS collections for the companies. His article can be downloaded here:

Material Safety Data Sheets: Who Uses Them?Download

Twenty-three years later, much has changed in the world of chemical hazard communication, both in terms of the communications technology used to share the information involved and, with the advent of the GHS system, the contents of the materials itself. 

To help assess us what progress has been made in hazard communication performance, we did an informal poll of the CHAS membership. We received 139 responses, with distinct patterns to their responses.

You can download summaries of their responses and comments in 5 files:

Summary of all Survey Responses
(file name: SDS 2018 Survey Data_All)Download
Question 4 Comments on methods of availability of SDSs
(file name: SDS 2018 Survey Q4 Data)Download
Question 10 comments on whether the SDS program is serving hazard communication intent
(file name: SDS 2018 Survey Q10 Data)Download
Question 11 comments on department responding
(file name: SDS 2018 Survey Q11 Data)Download
Comments on Question 12 about updating the survey
(file name: SDS 2018 Survey Q12 Data)Download
You can download a copy of this year’s survey here.
(file name: SDS Survey questions)Download

Related to this topic, there is an interesting 2018 article on Evaluating the readability and suitability of construction occupational safety and health materials designed for workers that includes SDS’s as part of their evaluation of safety literature for construction workers.

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CHAS Lifetime Achievement Award

Download the Nomination Application Form for this Award Here: [Click to Download CHAS Lifetime Achievement Nomination Form in Word format]

Statement of Award Purpose

The Lifetime Achievement Award from the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety recognizes a lifetime of dedication and service to the American Chemical Society, the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety, and the field of chemical health and safety.

Award

Engraved plaque including name of recipient

The recipient of this award is expected to deliver a 20 – 30-minute keynote presentation at the CHAS Awards Symposium at the ACS Fall national meeting in the year that they receive the award. The presentation may be on any topic related to chemical safety.

Description of Eligible Nominees

The awardee must be a member of the Division of Chemical Health and Safety and of ACS and must have been an active member of the Division for at least five years. The awardee will have shown support for the goals and activities of CHAS, the ACS, and the chemical health and safety community; and will have, through personal effort, helped CHAS and the ACS reach those goals.

This recognition is not expected to be awarded annually, but only in cases when an extraordinary candidate is nominated. More than one award may be granted if the CHAS Awards Selection Subcommittee determines that there are multiple deserving nominees

Required Support for Nomination

The nomination must include a cover letter from the nominator describing why the nominee is deserving of this award. The nomination cover letter must describe how the awardee has shown support for the goals and activities of CHAS, the ACS, and the chemical health and safety community; and how the nominee has, through personal effort, helped CHAS and the ACS reach those goals. The nomination application form must include a brief biographical summary of the nominee and a list of any relevant publications authored by the nominee.

Eligible Sources of Nominations

  • Self-nomination
  • Any CHAS division member
  • Subordinate (student, employee, etc.)
  • Superior (supervisor, director, etc.)
  • Peer

Additional Information about this Award

This award was established in 2018 by Doug Walters, PhD. in his final year serving in the role of CHAS Awards Chair. The following year, Dr. Walters was one of two recipients of this award.

Previous Winners

  • Ralph Stuart, 2024
  • Russ Phifer, 2023
  • Robert H. Hill, Jr., 2021
  • Laurence Doemeny, 2018
  • Neal Langerman, 2018
  • Ken Fivizzani, 2019
  • Doug Walters, 2019
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JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight for Nov / Dec 2018

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The Editor’s Spotlight for the November / December 2018 issue of the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety is shining on:

Expedient destruction of organic peroxides including triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in emergency situations by Damien Reid, Bruce Riches, Andrew Rowan, Michael Logan

You can download the paper in PDF format here.

The authoring team are:

  • Damien Reid is affiliated with Research and Scientific Branch, Queensland Fire and Emergency Ser- vices, G.P.O. Box 1425, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia.
  • Bruce Riches is affiliated with Research and Scientific Branch, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, G.P.O. Box 1425, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia.
  • Andrew Rowan is affiliated with Forensic Services Group, Queensland Police Service, Australia.
  • Michael Logan is affiliated with Research and Scientific Branch, Queensland Fire and Emergency Ser- vices, G.P.O. Box 1425, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia
Other papers in this issue include:

Boston safety! 
Harry J. Elston 

Comment on Letter from Dr. Edward Behrman – Laboratory Safety – A Contrary View 
Robert H. Hill 

Lessons learned in several laboratory upgrades 
L.C. Cadwallader, R.J. Pawelko 

Safety culture and safety compliance in academic laboratories: A Canadian perspective 
Helene-Rosina Ayi, Chun-Yip Hon 

Incomplete understanding of biogas chemical hazards — Serious gas poisoning accident while unloading food waste at biogas plant 
Frank Huess Hedlund, Michael Madsen 

Expedient destruction of organic peroxides including triacetone triperoxide (TATP) in emergency situations 
Damien Reid, Bruce Riches, Andrew Rowan, Michael Logan