Biological danger

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Membrane material for covering electrodes may be a source of difficulty since many synthetics contain plasticizers which are highly toxic and diffuse out from the film very slowly, causing cellular embarrassment. This can clearly be shown by using tissue culture situations to test potentially useful materials. Rapid failure of cell respiration, followed by cell death, can often be observed around so called inert plastics. Even different batches of a normally safe plastic may be biologically dangerous. 

Immediate biological danger may be caused by the presence of contagious diseases or via genetic manipulation. The result is again some form of occupational disease or illness. 

Long-term biological danger is usually cumulative in nature, for example, noise-induced occupational deafness. 

The shield An outer shell which serves as a stopping medium for the biologically dangerous radiations from the core and the reflector. 

On Russia territory there are about 100 thousands of dangerous enterprises and objects, comprising about 1500 nuclear facilities and 3000 chemical and biological extremely hazardous objects. The average period of emergency situations is 10 — 15 years for accidents and disasters with the material loss up to 2 billion USDs, and 15 — 45 days, when the material loss is up to 100 million USDs. 

The first step is to identify the substances present at the workplace. As a starting point, knowledge of the process is needed in order to formulate a list of all chemical agents used in the establishment. The list should include not only primary products but also intermediate and final products, as well as reaction products and by-products. For the chemical agents in the list, it is necessary to know their chemical properties, especially hazardous ones their OEL values, including biological limit values and, where these are not available, other technical criteria that can be used to evaluate the risk. It is also helpful to include any information on the safety and health risks of those substances provided by the supplier or other readily available sources. This information on dangerous substances and preparations, in the form of safety data sheets, is intended primarily for industrial users, to enable them to take the measures necessary to ensure the safety and health of workers. 

Desalination of sea water, or purification to eliminate dangerous ionic contaminants from industrial waste water involves important technological, scientific and financial risks. Most of them are related to the development of cheaper smart membranes that can mimic biological membranes. 

Ventilate the area well (for at least 10 min) to reduce irritant vapours and biological aerosols, and to evaporate remaining liquid (bear in mind that ventilation may transfer the danger to other parts of the premises)... 

The same principle is used for the preparative separation of mixtures of biological materials, the extraction of different individual components from these mixtures, and their purification. In this case one uses an electrophoretic method with continued introduction of individual portions of the mixture and withdrawal of portions of pure fractions. There have been reports that such processes were accomplished in spacecraft where, since gravitational forces are absent, the liquid solutions can be used without the danger of natural convection. 

The biocatalytic approach is based on recombinant Escherichia coli growing in an aqueous mineral medium (Scheme 5.4). In Scheme 5.4, microbial growth is translated into a stoichiometric equation for biocatalyst synthesis. One needs to consider that biological safety regulations for recombinant class 1 organisms (no danger for humans and the environment) have to be followed with respect to biocatalyst handling. 

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