I am saddened to report that a fellow chemist has died from the injuries she suffered from an accident involving a commonly used reagent in a chemistry lab at UCLA. The reagent is called t-butyllithium and I have used it several times before myself. It is so reactive with water that it reacts with trace moisture in the air, and that reaction being so exothermic, it spontaneously ignites. Then what's worse is the reagent is used as a solution in pentane, which is practically like jet fuel.You can read more about the incident here. What is scary is that this person did not make a very obvious mistake. What's more, this is a fairly common reagent that organic chemists use. I believe one of the ways to honor this person is for us chemists to learn from the accident. Here are my thoughts:
- If the reagent you're using is pyrophoric (meaning it can spontaneously ignite, like t-butyllithium), do not use pressure to force out the liquid out of the reagent bottle. Rather, puncture the septum with one inert gas line at ambient pressure and the syringe with which you draw out the liquid.
- Organic chemists should not wear sweaters in the lab.
- Go through the worst case scenario that could happen with your reagent and be mentally prepared for a disaster so as not to panic when it happens.
In case you were wondering, the picture above is my fume hood
Lord, please bless and comfort the family of this person. And Lord, please protect the chemists and more importantly, please save their souls through your Gospel. Amen.
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February 18th, 2009 at 3:53 am
Great story– sad, but good lessons learned.
God Bless!
Duane
aka HunkirDowne
August 17th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
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