Safety and Waste Disposal

The organic chemistry laboratory is an excellent place to learn and practice safety. Commonsense procedures practiced here also apply to other laboratories as well as the shop, kitchen, and studio. 

General laboratory safety information particularly applicable to this organic chemistry laboratory course is presented in this chapter. It is not comprehensive. Throughout this text you will find specific cautions and safety information presented as margin notes printed in red. For a relatively brief and more thorough discussion of all of the topics in this chapter you should read the first 35 pages of Safety in Academic Chemistry Laboratories, American Chemical Society, Washington, D.C., 1990. 

Know the safety rules of your particular laboratory. Know the locations of emergency eye washes and safety showers. Never eat, drink, or smoke in the laboratory. Don t work alone. Perform no unauthorized experiments and don t distract your fellow workers horseplay has no place in the laboratory. 

Eye protection is extremely important. Safety glasses of some type must be worn at all times. Contact lenses should not be worn because reagents can get under a lens and cause damage to the eye before the lens can be removed. It is very difficult to remove a contact lens from the eye after a chemical splash has occurred. 

Ordinary prescription eyeglasses don t offer adequate protection. Laboratory safety glasses should be of plastic or tempered glass. If you do not have such glasses, wear goggles that afford protection from splashes and objects coming from the side as well as the front. If plastic safety glasses are permitted in your laboratory, they should have side shields (see Fig. 1). 

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Safety and waste disposal are treated in detail because of their ever increasing importance. 

Countries in the Middle East and Russia hold 70% of the world s dwindling reserves of oil and gas. Coal is the most abundant and widely distributed fossil fuel. Global natural gas reserves are large and currently yield a reserve/production ratio of 50 to 60 years. Nuclear power s share of worldwide electricity supplies has been steady at 16-17% for many years, but reactor safety and waste disposal problems are still matters of concern. 

Chemistry in the Laboratory This well-respected manual, by Julian Roberts and Leland Hollenberg of the University of Redlands and James Postma of California State University at Chico, is now in its fourth edition. It contains 44 laboratory-tested experiments and a new emphasis on safety and waste disposal. It includes many new reduced-scale experiments. All experiments are available as Laboratory Separates. 

Etching solutions can be purchased from a number of sources. They include Fluoro Etch by Acton Corp. and Tetra-Etch by W. L. Gore Associates. Some companies, such as Acton Corp., provide surface treatment service. Operational safety and waste disposal are two issues concerning parties that deal with etching solutions. 

An environmental and health impact that a product has must be based on all aspects of creating the product including raw material production, manufacturing/assembly, use/service, and not just end-of-life management (recycling, disposal, etc.), which determines the economic viability of the product system [10]. To account for potential detrimental impacts a product may possess, it is necessary to consider energy and material consumption, emissions to the air and water, toxin levels in the product, worker and user safety, and waste disposal issues [9j. 

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