Explosion in Biochem Lab

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Vadoff said:
Yeah, I heard about her. It's because she wasn't following lab procedures.
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There was more to it than that. UCLA was fined by the state for safety violations in the workplace.
 
Yeah...crazy. My freshman year, we had to evacuate my orgo lab b/c apparently one of the labs started a huge fire. Luckily no one was hurt, though.
 
loua0731 said:
Yeah...crazy. My freshman year, we had to evacuate my orgo lab b/c apparently one of the labs started a huge fire. Luckily no one was hurt, though.
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Wow, orgo fire. What year was that? And I thought this was the only crazy thing going at UMich

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Oh man... that's rough.

My orgo professor said one time, when he was in college, someone poured the wrong chemical into one of the waste jugs, and his professor threw it out the window because they'd basically just created an explosive (I think TNT, I forget the specifics of the story).
 
MDMBS said:
Wow, orgo fire. What year was that? And I thought this was the only crazy thing going at UMich

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Haha is that REAL?!

And it was either fall 2007 or spring 2008...i can't remember exactly.
 
wonder what kind of semen specialist they need to bring in
 
My university (not UMich) posted that same exact sign, word for word (though a substituted logo) in our bathrooms. It helped me realize the virtues of living at home, where I don't have to worry about showering with other people's bodily fluids 👍.

And yeah, wear your goggles.
 
i love the automated thing at the bottom of the article that relates the article your reading to other similar stories:

"You might like:

18 killed in tanker explosion in pakistan

28 hurt in british food factory explosion"

Yup i love reading about people getting killed while various things are exploding.
 
Two people in my orgo lab accidentally set trash cans on fire by throwing hot sand into them, on two separate occasions. I can understand how the first person might have made that mistake, but I never got how the second person, having seen the first person do it once before, also did the same thing.
 
MisterVeil said:
but I never got how the second person, having seen the first person do it once before, also did the same thing.
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It's just like that one guy everyone knows in lab who, after getting his 5th set of 3rd degree burns from grabbing a beaker off a hotplate says "but it looked like normal glass!"
 
The girl who died at UCLA was trying to use tertbutyl lithium by using a syringe. The fact that she wass using a syringe in the first place indicates that she had no idea what she was doing. The person in charge, preferably someone with much more experience and with a phd, should have been supervising her while she was using it. NO undergrad or new grrad student should be using tertbutyl lithium without supervision and guidance because they have little experience. One of the only times I've ever broken a sweat in the lab was when I was using t butyl li
 
novawildcat said:
The girl who died at UCLA was trying to use tertbutyl lithium by using a syringe. The fact that she wass using a syringe in the first place indicates that she had no idea what she was doing. The person in charge, preferably someone with much more experience and with a phd, should have been supervising her while she was using it. NO undergrad or new grrad student should be using tertbutyl lithium without supervision and guidance because they have little experience. One of the only times I've ever broken a sweat in the lab was when I was using t butyl li
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What's wrong with using a syringe with tBuLi?
 
wanderer100 said:
What's wrong with using a syringe with tBuLi?
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Because you will get a flamethrower out of your syringe once you pull it out of the bottle. T butyl li is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY pyrophoric, and a syringe should pretty much only be used in when small amounts are needed. Most of the time you want to use proper air sensitive techniques like cannulation. If t butyl li sees the slightest hint of air you get a big flame you can't extinguish. This girl was trying to withdraw a lot, 60 mL, with a 20 g needle tip.
 
novawildcat said:
Because you will get a flamethrower out of your syringe once you pull it out of the bottle. T butyl li is EXTREMELY EXTREMELY pyrophoric, and a syringe should pretty much only be used in when small amounts are needed. Most of the time you want to use proper air sensitive techniques like cannulation. If t butyl li sees the slightest hint of air you get a big flame you can't extinguish. This girl was trying to withdraw a lot, 60 mL, with a 20 g needle tip.
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I see now. For small amounts a syringe is okay to use if the air is flushed out with inert gas.
I guess I just assumed that someone using organolithiums would at least know how to properly draw through a syringe.
 
It can be dangerous. Then again, one thing I have learned from chem is how dangerous household chemicals are as well. Sure, you are running a risk in the lab, but some, including me, would argue that you are actually much safer there with all of the proper safety precautions than in, oh, your garage with the many dangerous chemicals. Even worse is knowing that others can go to an arts and crafts store and buy highly acidic chemicals without any real warning or direction on how to use them. That's scary to me.
 
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