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Asked by smiley face to Angela, Claire, Ian, Robert, Sarah on 14 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by JHoadleyy, ED.
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Ian Cade answered on 14 Nov 2014:
A few.
Some small, like (very) occasionally adding the wrong amount of something (having worked out its molar mass incorrectly) or just the wrong something (having not read the label carefully enough).
Others… hmm… bigger. I once filled my fumehood with fire (a cupboard at waist height about 1.5 metres wide 1.5 metres high and 1 metre deep, with a plastic sash-window on the front)… having been only marginally careless when hydrolysing sodium metal in part of a solvent still. (all ended fine after application of a CO2 extinguisher – normally this would be a bad choice for a sodium fire… but it was only a small amount of sodium that set fire to a large amount of toluene… so it was ok).
And I did once have a moderately pressurised bottle of TiCl4 explode in my hands (fortunately I anticipated the problem so had two pairs of gloves and a labcoat on!)
And I have helped out when other folk in the lab have damaged themselves… normally fires, sometimes small explosions, but most often small cuts from broken bits of lab glassware.
… no poisonings yet thankfully (well none that couldn’t be fixed by a short walk outside to get a lung-full of fresh air)
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Angela Stokes answered on 16 Nov 2014:
Hi smiley face,
I left a stoppered flask of a catalyst on my bench and went for lunch, the sun came out over the lunch period and warmed the flask and the catalyst expoded out of the flask and ended up all over the lab windows. No-one was hurt and I had to spend the afternoon cleaning up…I never did it again!!
Comments
smiley face commented on :
thank you