[REPRINT] accidents and experiences in 12 years of a chemical career

[Jackson Chung]

This is a story originaly written by a chemistry student (and later, a worker) that describes the chemical accidents he has encountered in his career (some of them funny, others not so much). It was first posted in the chinese forum [baidu tieba], which has then been reprinted countless times on other forums. So I figured I could share this story with you english speakers, since I am a chinese but I also understand english quite well. still I may make some errors in grammar, so please forgive those.

for credit purposes, this is the chinese post I decided to translate

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_6e45082d0102vwqh.html

So here we go.

The first incident I have encountered, it wasnt really much of  an incident now that I think of it.

Beijing University of Chemical Technology, north area, laboratory building, 4th floor.

some idiot in our class was preparing a kind of indicator used for titration. He was making all 50 litres that would be used by the whole class. And without a warning. the bottle exploded!

the liquid spilled onto us.the problem with this is that it stains the skin yellow and cannot be washed off easily. God, the girls in our class almost commited suicide because it ruined their 'beautiful' faces. To be honest I didnt think it made much of a difference xD.

Us boys didint care that much, because we knew it would fade in at most 15 days. It's just that everyone looks at you when you go out.

 

The second one I encountered. we were doing experiments and every one of us took a small platinum container and placed it in a high temp furnace (about 900C). And the same idiot as mentioned above, he dropped the thing. the floor was covered with fire proof carpet. and thats were it gets exciting. The carpet, which was supposed to be fire proof, lit on fire instantly! we were all freaked out, and some people started to step on the fire to try to extinguish it. then they got their shoes on fire everything wa chaotic. Some hero brought the fire extinguisher, and sprayed for 5 min to fully put out the fire. it was a dry chemical fire extinguisher, and we got covered in magnesium carbonate powder.yikes.

...................

 

In the chemical industry, there is a skill that is vital to your survial.that is knowing how to put out a fire. otherwise you would die sooner or later.

that time I was doing a small reaction. I used diethyl ether as a solvent. when I was done with the reaction, I poured it out of the RB flask to dispose of it. I left the RB flask on a heating mantle. and without a warning, the RB flask lit on fire! boy can this diethyl ether burn! I try using sand to put it out, and fire proof cloth, but nothing worked. I didnt use the extinguisher since it was a very small fire.So I just closed the fume hood and watched it burned. it ruined a magnetic stirrer and a heating mantle.

 

I have encountered a greater fire hazard. it was  tert-butyllithium. I can say that this is the most flammable stuff I have ever worked with. that factory had a lot of experienced workers, but this was the first time working with this stuff, and all we really know is that it is super flammable, so we were very careful. after unloading the solution, a bucket filled with sand is placed under the barrel to catch any remaining liquid. fire extinguishers at stand by . even a small drop on the floor was removed very carefully.

So the first three times nothing happened. so some lowered their gaurd.

that time after we unload it, we left the pipe on the ground and went to work up other equipment. the liquid was spilling onto the floor.the supervisor instructed a worker to clean it up. and without a warning.that stuff lit on fire! and strangely enough, that fire ball elevated from the floor, and  float in the air! everyone panicked, and grab extinguishers to combat the fire. the fireball broke when hit by the extinguisher stream, and formed smaller fireballs flying everywhere. I was at third fllor in the building, and I was really scared at that moment. If one of the reaction containers in the factory exploded, a chain reaction will occur blowing up everything in one Km² .in that case there is nothing you can do but die. you cant outrun it.

now we talk about sulfuric acid. regardless of whether it is concentrated sulfuric acid or fuming sulfuric acid, if a few drops drip on to your skin. wash immediately with a large amount of water.tap water, distilled, etc it does not matter. if a large amount splash on your  clothes,  take off your clothes right away (including underwear) and wash your naked body with water. if a large amount of concentrated acid gets onto your skin,well then, use water ,or any nontoxic liquid, like ethanol or oil or whatever to wash it off. In summary you need to minimize your time of exposure to the acid and remove it completely. otherwise you would die.

I've seen it once.

acid on face. it turns white real quick. like when you have bathed for a long time. and then it turns black. He died eventually.here's how that happened.

 

(to be continued)

 

will be  continued on

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[swansont]

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