Laboratory operator involvement

The truth is we do not know, as yet. We cannot provide a fair answer without an estimate of the uncertainty associated with these values. Each laboratory operation involved in the titrations is subjected to errors. The type and magnitude of these errors, the extents of which we have not yet ascertained, will influence the final results — and therefore our conclusions. The apparently unsatisfactory result might not be due to the sample itself but to inherent variations in the anal3d ical procedure. The same might be said of the result that seems to fall within specification. 

Many operations involving chemical reactions are potentially dangerous, and in such cases recommended procedures must be carefully followed and obeyed. All laboratory workers should familiarise themselves with local safety requirements (in some laboratories, the wearing of safety spectacles may be compulsory), and with the position of first-aid equipment. 

Throughout the book, the person in charge of day-to-day operations is referred to as the laboratory operator. This is not an administrator or supervisor located in an office down the hall or in another building. The laboratory operator must be heavily involved in all aspects of planning. Only he can estimate space requirements, check a proposed layout for practical and safe operation, and recommend allowances for future expansion. Regardless of the amount of professional assistance available, the laboratory operator can expect to burn much midnight oil. During construction he must be available at all times to take care of those numerous problems nobody had predicted. 

Planning and building a laboratory requires a cooperative effort involving administrators, designers, equipment supply houses, contractors, and the laboratory operator. A laboratory designed for efficient operation can be achieved only if all of them work together with mutual respect and the best possible communication. 

From the list of laboratory operations previously prepared, it will now be easy to single out the ones that require power. The manuals for the equipment already on hand and catalog information on items yet to be purchased can provide the power requirements. Compared to what was available some years ago, modern laboratory equipment does not need much power. Exceptions are heating devices and motors, which may be very power hungry. A list of the wattages involved should be made, noting which equipment operates on 110 volts and which on 220. Allowance should be made for future purchases of equipment. This information will help the electrical engineer or contractor determine the number of circuits. 

A safe laboratory is the result of both good design and proper work rules. The laboratory operator, as the only person fully aware of the work to be performed, must be involved in all safety planning. He will be the one who can supply the safety experts with the information they need. 

Local ones are listed in the yellow pages of the telephone directory. The laboratory operator should contact more than one for suggestions and estimates. In such discussions, a disposal service vdll ask detailed questions as to the exact nature of the waste and quantities involved. An agreement will be made about the types of shipping containers to be used. These are non-returnable. The disposal service may sell suitable containers and require these for certain types of waste. In other cases, the laboratory may provide its own. If drums are needed, they are available from companies engaged in drum reconditioning. Manufacturers of chemicals may have used drums available at reasonable prices, but since these wdll contain residues of their former contents, a check for compatibility must be made before using them. 

An accomplished architect once recommended a certain type of rubber tile for a laboratory floor because his data indicated its superior resistance to acids. He had not bothered to find out whether or not acid spills would be a problem in this case. They would not, in fact. Solvent spills, on the other hand, were quite likely to occur, and the recommended tile had poor solvent resistance. This example illustrates two things the importance of the laboratory operator s involvement with details that are sometimes overlooked even by experts, and the need to study each laboratory s requirements individually. 

These systems must be designed so as to accommodate continual change. They should easily accommodate frequent changes in formulations and reactor hardware. They must be able to control complex operations involving simultaneous tasks. Contrasting with these requirements, the software must be easily maintained, operate reliably, and be easy to use by laboratory personnel. 

In addition to continuous bench-scale work, CCDC carried out a rather extensive laboratory program involving the use of the microautoclave reactor. The program developed tests to compare the activities of different solvents. These tests quickly evaluated a solvent so that the performance under coal liquefaction conditions could be predicted. The tests are now used at the Wilsonville SRC Pilot Plant as a means of determining when stable operation has been achieved. 

A laboratory hood has an opening 4 ft in length by 3 ft in height. The hood depth is 18 in. This hood will be used for an operation involving trichloroethylene (TCE) (TLV-TWA 50 ppm). The TCE will be used in liquid form at room temperature. Determine an appropriate control velocity for this hood, and calculate the total air flow rate. 

SACHEM Inc., located in Cleburne, Texas, is a producer of high-purity bulk chemicals for companies that have high-purity requirements in their chemical processing. Because the products are of high purity, laboratory operations to assure the quality of the products (quality assurance operations) involve the determination of trace levels of contaminants. Contamination of laboratory samples and materials is of special concern in cases like this because an uncommonly small amount of contaminant can adversely affect the results. The laboratory work therefore takes place in a special environment called a clean room. A clean room is a space in which extraordinary precautions are taken to avoid the slightest contamination. Laboratory personnel wear special clean room suits, nets to cover hair, mustaches, and beards, and special shoes, gloves, and safety glasses to minimize possible contamination. 

In Section 3, quality assurance was defined as the laboratory operations employed to test a company s products, or an agency s samples, etc., to determine if they are within specification. This section discusses the specifics of these operations — what considerations are involved in the day-to-day work of a quality assurance technician or chemist. 

The GALPs require that a current summary of personnel training, experience, and job description be available for all laboratory personnel involved in the design or operation of an automated system. 

The up-scaling from microreactor to small monoliths principally deals with the change of geometry (from powdered to honeycomb catalyst) and fluid dynamics (from turbulent flow in packed-bed to laminar flow in monolith channels). In this respect, it involves therefore moving closer to the conditions prevailing in the real full-scale monolithic converter, while still operating, however, under well controlled laboratory conditions, involving, e.g. the use of synthetic gas mixtures. 

Very probably these fifteen steps indicate thus obscurely the various operations involved in laboratory operations, fusion, fixation, distillation, sublimation, projection, crystallization, etc. 

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