Tag Archives: Technical Presentations

Nanosafety and Awards Presentations at Boston National Meeting

Nanomaterials: Applications, Safety Considerations, & Implications for Human Health & the Environment

Role of the National Nanotechnology Initiative in the Safe and Responsible Development of Nanotechnology.
M. Meador

Nanotechnology: Where is it Today and is EHS a Part of Successful Commercialization.
C. Geraci

Back from the future: What nanotechnology can teach us about chemical safety today.
K. Kulinowski

CHAS Awards Symposium

Looking forward: Fifty years experience in chemical safety.
N. Langerman

Zooming out: The future of chemical-research health and safety through a wide-angle lens.
K. Brown

Innovation transforming lives through the power of clean water.
D. Schmidt

Yale’s Safety Advisor Model for Supporting and Integrating Safety into Research. P. Reinhardt

Fostering a culture of safety at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. C. Brennan, N. Eskew

Dow Lab Safety Academy: Lessons Learned & Future Opportunities.
L. Seiler

Learning Laboratory Safety through Storytelling

Enhancing the Culture of Safety through Good Storytelling.
M.B. Koza

How personal stories can support safety training.
D.M. Decker

What’s the point of your story?
K.P. Fivizzani

Playing with Fire.
S.B. Sigmann

An unknowing, unthinking, uncaring graduate student learns a lesson about safety.
R.H. Hill

The Genres of Science
R. Stuart

Turning safety observations into messages.
T.C. Gallagher, R. Brian, R. Stuart

From Storytelling to StoryMAKING.
R.M. Izzo

Preserving Institutional History of Chemical Incidents..
P.A. Reinhardt

Using Risk Management Techniques to Improve Situational Awareness and Accident Reduction.
R. Lippman

Chemical safety information in PubChem.
J. Zhang, P. Thiessen, A. Gindulyte, E. Bolton

Using the chemical inventory system to create research articles that include safety information.
R.N. Vernon, K.N. Lamb

JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight: Chemical safety education for the 21st century

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

Chemical safety education for the 21st century — Fostering safety information competency in chemists by
Samuella Sigmann

The abstract for this article is:

During the education process, each person strives to acquire the necessary skill set or set of competencies needed to be successful in their selected career. For example, a job listing for a bench chemist might state that the successful applicant should have a BS in chemistry, (knowledge), be familiar with common laboratory operations (skills), and be a contributing member of a team (attitude). It is our job as curriculum designers and educators to give our students the competencies they will need to be successful. The chemistry curriculum must include those competencies needed for working safely in a chemistry research laboratory.

This can be accomplished by weaving the knowledge component of competencies spirally into the chemistry major’s curriculum. We cannot assume that a student who has successfully completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry has acquired the necessary competencies to perform a risk assessment or read a safety data sheet (SDS). Skill-based laboratory activity is valuable and can be specifically transferred to the next task, but knowledge and attitudes assist future learning in a nonspecific transfer and must be taught as ideas and principles. This work looks at the competencies required to be a chemist from an historical point and suggests ways that chemical safety information can be infused into the twenty-first century chemistry curriculum using embedded safety professionals, risk assessment, and SDSs to broaden and deepen safety knowledge.

This article and the rest of the issue can be found at ScienceDirect site

Also included in this issue of JCHAS are:

Chemical safety information in the 21st century
Ralph Stuart

Collecting reaction incident information: Engaging the community in sharing safety learnings
Carmen I. Nitsche, Gabrielle Whittick, Mark Manfredi

Baseline survey of academic chemical safety information practices
Leah McEwen, Ralph Stuart, Ellen Sweet, Robin Izzo

The chemical safety gateway: Beyond Google’s limitations
Abe Lederman, Sol Lederman

ACS’s Hazard Assessment in Research Laboratories website: An important safety culture tool
Kendra Leahy Denlinger

JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight: Chemical suicides: Hazards and how to manage them

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

Chemical suicides: Hazards and how to manage them by
Michael Logan and Christina  Baxter

Michael Logan is affiliated with Research and Scientific Branch, Queensland Fire and Emergency Services, GPO BOX 1425, Brisbane, Queensland 4001, Australia.

Christina Baxter is affiliated with Emergency Response TIPS, LLC, Woodbridge, Virginia 22191, USA.

The abstract for this article is:

Emergency response to chemical suicides has become more common place in recent years. In order to address the operational implications of these events, it is first important to understand the methodologies which are commonly used, the locations where the events often occur, the concentrations of material generated, and how those concentration relates to exposure standards and flammability. Using hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and phosphine as examples, guidance is offered about risk control measures including personal protective equipment and decontamination strategies to effectively and safely mitigate the incidents.

This article and the rest of the issue can be found at ScienceDirect site

Also included in this issue of JCHAS are:

Expanding our Boarders: Safety at ABCChem 2018

Anatomy of an incident—Multiple failure of safety systems under stress
Hugo Schmidt

Make safety a habit!
Robert H. Hill

The state of the arts: Chemical safety — 1937 to 2017
Monona Rossol

Contamination control monitoring at the Los Alamos National Laboratory’s Plutonium Facility
Michael E. Cournoyer

March, 2018 Webinar Follow-up

In the 21st century, chemistry research is more varied and expansive than ever before, the rules that keep one lab safe will not adequately address the possible risks in others. Rather than having a universal set of rules, a more adaptive system is needed for both academic and industry labs. Ralph Stuart, Chemical Hygiene Officer at Keene State College, and Samuella Sigmann, Senior Lecturer at Appalachian State University, propose a new way of thinking that builds a dynamic safety system based on your own needs and conditions as well as provides resources on how such programs can be developed.

You can download a PDF of the presentation here.

The webinar was attended by over 850 people, who asked many more interesting questions than we were able to answer during the webinar. We built a web page to answer questions we didn’t get to and  provide our initial answers. Some of these questions have many possible answers. Let us know if you have comments or questions on what we’ve said or ask an additional question on the web page.

In case you’re curious, you can see what some of the comments from those who attended in the 2018-03-08 Safety Webinar Speaker Feedback infographic.

 

JCHAS Editor’s Spotlight: A methodology on how to create a real-life relevant risk profile for a given nanomaterial

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

A methodology on how to create a real-life relevant risk profile for a given nanomaterial
by Christa Schimpel, Susanne Resch,  Guillaume Flament,  David Carlander, and Izaskun Bustero

The abstract for this Open access article is:

With large amounts of nanotoxicology studies delivering contradicting results and a complex, moving regulatory framework, potential risks surrounding nanotechnology appear complex and confusing. Many researchers and workers in different sectors are dealing with nanomaterials on a day-to-day basis, and have a requirement to define their assessment/management needs.

This paper describes an industry-tailored strategy for risk assessment of nanomaterials and nano-enabled products, which builds on recent research outcomes. The approach focuses on the creation of a risk profile for a given nanomaterial (e.g., determine which materials and/or process operation pose greater risk, where these risks occur in the lifecycle, and the impact of these risks on society), using state-of-the-art safety assessment approaches/tools (ECETOC TRA, Stoffenmanager Nano and ISO/TS 12901-2:2014).

The developed nanosafety strategy takes into account cross-sectoral industrial needs and includes:

  • (i) Information Gathering: Identification of nanomaterials and hazards by a demand-driven questionnaire and on-site company visits in the context of human and ecosystem exposures, considering all companies/parties/downstream users involved along the value chain;
  • (ii) Hazard Assessment: Collection of all relevant and available information on the intrinsic properties of the substance (e.g., peer reviewed (eco)toxicological data, material safety data sheets), as well as identification of actual recommendations and benchmark limits for the different nano-objects in the scope of this projects;
  • (iii) Exposure Assessment: Definition of industry-specific and application-specific exposure scenarios taking into account operational conditions and risk management measures;
  • (iv) Risk Characterisation: Classification of the risk potential by making use of exposure estimation models (i.e., comparing estimated exposure levels with threshold levels);
  • (v) Refined Risk Characterisation and Exposure Monitoring: Selection of individual exposure scenarios for exposure monitoring following the OECD Harmonized Tiered Approach to refine risk assessment;
  • (vi) Risk Mitigation Strategies: Development of risk mitigation actions focusing on risk prevention.

This article and the rest of the issue can be found at ScienceDirect site

Also included in this issue of JCHAS are:

Don’t ever tell me…
Harry J. Elston

Photocatalytic degradation of phenol solution using Zinc Oxide/UV
Original research article
H. Dewidar, S.A. Nosier, A.H. El-Shazly

A methodology on how to create a real-life relevant risk profile for a given nanomaterial
Open access – Original research article
Christa Schimpel, Susanne Resch,  Guillaume Flament,  David Carlander, and Izaskun Bustero

A case history of legacy chemical cleanup in the lab
Original research article
L.C. Cadwallader, R.J. Pawelko

Development of custom calibration factors for respirable silica using standard methods compared to photometric monitoring data
Pages 27-35
Leon F. Pahler, Danielle D. McKenzie-Smith, Rodney G. Handy, Darrah K. Sleeth

Engineering intervention to reduce API dust exposure during milling operation
Original research article
Vivek Kanjiyangat, Manikandan Hareendran

UPCOMING EVENTS

Safety Presentations from the Atlantic Basin Conference on Chemistry

ACS Safety Initiatives: Impact On The Global Chemistry Enterprise
Neal Langerman

US safety initiatives as influences on global laboratory safety
Russ Phifer

Approaching research and scale-up safety through process-oriented solutions
Harry J. Elston, Ph.D., CIH

Social and Ethical Implications (SEI) of Nanotechnology
Larry Gibbs, CIH, FAIHA

Analyzing academic laboratory accidents to prevent accidents
Craig Merlic

Risk Perception in Academic Laboratories
Imke Schroeder, Ph.D.

SERMACS Lab Safety Stories Symposium

 

Learning Laboratory Safety Through Storytelling

The story of chemical safety in the 20th (and 21st) century. R. Stuart

How does an EHS professional engage their audience?. M.B. Koza

Using learning points to create a sound safety baseline. K.W. Kretchman

A series of unfortunate events: A personal story. S.B. Sigmann

Stories of laboratory incidents teach us lessons about safety. R.H. Hill

 

Webinar on Strategies for Chemical Threat Reduction

Avoiding the Next Chemical Catastrophe: Strategies for Chemical Threat Reduction

Co-sponsored by

October 19, 2017 @ 2:00pm ET

Every lab has chemicals that are vital to research and experimentation but these same chemicals whether you are in industry or academia, can be stolen and used by non-state actors for malevolent acts. Join Andrew Nelson of Sandia National Laboratories as he introduces strategies to mitigate the risks that small labs and universities face with theft of chemicals for chemical weapons, explosives, and illicit drug production.

Register at https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/acs-webinars/popular-chemistry/threat.html

What You Will Learn

  • Why chemical security is important to all labs with current examples of incidents
  • What considerations must be made in a security risk management system
  • How chemical security is a teachable skill and what resources are available to you today

Webinar Details

  • Date: Thursday, October 19, 2017 @ 2-3pm ET
  • Fee: Free to Attend
  • Download slides after presentation