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Author: Subject: Bad days in the lab or with glassware?
neptunium
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[*] posted on 27-2-2012 at 06:02


yeah at the emergency room ! after the blood finaly stop gushing..
13 stiches and no nerve damage i got lucky!
it happen so fast i didnt even feel a thing! glass a bad mot....er!




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[*] posted on 2-3-2012 at 23:19


Receive flask from Bob.

Have flask out of the box for less than 5 min before I break it.

Yup...




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Hexavalent
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[*] posted on 3-3-2012 at 07:53


That's the worst time for glassware to break . . .I would rather it die valiantly in a destructive distillation than before its even been used.

If you have all the pieces and access to a good glassblower, he/she may be able to fix it for you.




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[*] posted on 4-3-2012 at 12:48


I got an electric shock from my heating mantle today. Not serious though, just enough to startle me. I didn't even touch any metal parts, just the glass wool with both hands as I was feeling whether it started getting warm. It must be all the moisture in my unheated lab, it condenses inside the glass wool and together with traces of salts from spills and aerosols it becomes partially conductive.



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Hexavalent
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[*] posted on 5-3-2012 at 12:54


Nasty, GC!

Yesterday I was washing glassware. A very cheap Erlenmeyer falls on the floor, and is fine. Phew.
Today, I was washing glassware. A condenser falls on the floor, and breaks. Screw!




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neptunium
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[*] posted on 5-3-2012 at 12:59


glasware can be so unpredictable sometimes...trust me !



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Hexavalent
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[*] posted on 5-3-2012 at 13:10


I agree! I once had a boiling, concentrated solution of potassium chlorate in a large beaker heating over a Bunsen flame. Two minutes later, a large purple flame is observed as the beaker breaks and the liquid (and glass) is sprayed everywhere!:/



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plante1999
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[*] posted on 5-3-2012 at 13:38


Quote: Originally posted by Hexavalent  
I agree! I once had a boiling, concentrated solution of potassium chlorate in a large beaker heating over a Bunsen flame. Two minutes later, a large purple flame is observed as the beaker breaks and the liquid (and glass) is sprayed everywhere!:/


It depand on the quality of the glassware , bomex will break only with heating , pyrex classic could withstand boiling water and then be dropped in ice. This is why I buy only pyrex classic beaker/flask and for the test tube pyrex vista.

500 post!!!!





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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 12:38


The wind blew over my 1L 24/40 addition funnel and it broke. God fucking dammit!!!



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Hexavalent
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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 13:44


I'm 13 and my Dad never believes me when I say that the wind blows an item of glassware over and breaks the bloody thing!:)



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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 13:58


Well I was leaving it out to dry

I hope you don't swear as much as me when something like that happens, haha




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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 15:31


Quote: Originally posted by Hexavalent  
Nasty, GC!

Yesterday I was washing glassware. A very cheap Erlenmeyer falls on the floor, and is fine. Phew.
Today, I was washing glassware. A condenser falls on the floor, and breaks. Screw!


Oh, trust me, it's not fine anymore. Mark it as "potentially failing".

Regarding the swearing, I unleash my fury when shit happens, but otherwise I'm quite calm and dislike swearing. :D




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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 17:32


The other day, when I was cleaning up my stuff from chromium (VI) residue, I was using sodium metabisulfite. The wet solid fumed so much I couldn't breathe well for 10 minutes afterwards. It made my cough much worse. I hate SO<sub>2</sub>. From now on I'm going to wear a respirator when working with sulfites or just use sodium thiosulfate.
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[*] posted on 11-3-2012 at 17:43


i hate it too man ! its much worse than chlorine ! i take chlorine over SO2 anyday!!



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neptunium
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[*] posted on 12-3-2012 at 09:28


somebody ask me to put a picture of my bad day with glassware and the 13 stiches i got last year....
enjoy!

13 stiches new.JPG - 54kB




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[*] posted on 12-3-2012 at 11:17


Awesome! Kind of reminds me of this. :cool:



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[*] posted on 29-3-2012 at 12:59


Nasty!

Today I was dumping a waste lead acetate solution down the toilet and forgot there was a stirbar in it. . .so I attached a magnet to some acrylic rod and went fishing down the lavatorium!:)




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[*] posted on 29-3-2012 at 13:12


Quote: Originally posted by Hexavalent  

Today I was dumping a waste lead acetate solution down the toilet and forgot there was a stirbar in it. . .so I attached a magnet to some acrylic rod and went fishing down the lavatorium!:)


Lead down the toilet? How much? You should rather precipitate it and then dispose of it, or recycle it.

Also, I have forgotten my stirbar at least twice when pouring something into the sink. Unscrewing the trap beneath it and getting it out is pretty nasty work...




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[*] posted on 1-4-2012 at 02:36


I usually do, but it was only a very dilute (probably less than 0.01M) and had a volume of about 30ml. So not much lead was actually present, and, where I live, proper hazardous waste disposal costs an arm and a leg.



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[*] posted on 1-4-2012 at 12:19


Quote: Originally posted by Hexavalent  
where I live, proper hazardous waste disposal costs an arm and a leg.


Are you sure? The least you could have done was to react the lead salt with baking soda to form an insoluble carbonate. I do that whenever I deal with iron salts (after staining multiple things, including my roof :)).

If you're wondering how I stained my roof, I used to have my lab upstairs and I like to keep the window open in the summer. Clumsy as I am, I knocked over a large jar of iron III acetate and it spilled all over the roof. Somehow the jar didn't break, but the solution quickly evaporated and the iron deposited onto my roof. To this day, I'm not sure how to get rid of the stain. I guess you could call that a bad day in the lab.

Just gravity filter out the carbonate and bury it somewhere far, far away. Although lead carbonate is insoluble, it will react with acids and become soluble again over time, so even pouring lead carbonate down the toilet is not a good idea either.

The proper disposal method IIRC is to bubble H2S into a solution with dissolved lead, but considering you didn't even do the bare minimum, I don't think you'll go through that much trouble.




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[*] posted on 1-4-2012 at 15:55


Its very irresponsible to dump ANY heavy metal waste down the drain. Always precipitate it and save it in a polybottle, either as "lead waste" or as "mixed metal waste". The advantage of collecting it separately is that it is re-usable with less hassle than having to separate the elements again. Same with solvent waste, although you can't always recycle this efficiently (e.g. hexane-ethyl acetate waste, boiling points are too close for anything resembling a trivial separation).

I was trying to break up an oil that had solidified in a rbf the other day at work, and ended up putting the spatula right through the wall of the flask, despite not being heavy handed with it. Thankfully my hand was underneath the produced hole, allowing me to catch my valuable product! I was left unscathed thankfully, and my compound was recovered in full.
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[*] posted on 3-4-2012 at 03:22


As aforementioned, only very small amounts of lead ions were actually present, yet from today forwards I shall do as you say and collect all hazardous waste. But, alas, what should I do with it when it's full?



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[*] posted on 3-4-2012 at 06:19


I collect all hazardous metal waste in a single bottle. This bottle contains solutions of lead, cadmium, nickel, silver, mercury, tellurium and quite a few others. When it is full, I bring it to a municipal waste processing facility and I tell that it is photography darkroom waste. The bottle is labeled with the text "heavy metal waste".

In this way, the heavy metals do not go down the drain and I also do not bury any precipitate (which to my opinion is even worse than pouring it down the drain).

Many other metals salts I simply dispose of down the drain, e.g. iron, titanium, manganese, magnesium, calcium, chromium(III). Metals like zinc, copper, nickel, cobalt are borderline. If I have a gram or so of metal waste, then I put it in the bottle, if it is minor (only 100 mg or so, or a few ml of dilute solution in a test tube), then it goes down the drain with a lot of water.

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Volatile organics I simply dispose of by letting them evaporate outside on a paper tissue and when the tissue is dry, I put it in the normal household waste. Having a few ml of e.g. DCM, acetone, chloroform or some other organic evaporate outside does no harm at all.




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[*] posted on 7-4-2012 at 11:02
FUCK!


Shoulda drained the water out of this before winter. Expensive mistake...

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Hexavalent
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[*] posted on 7-4-2012 at 11:45


Is that from your rotovap? I feel sorry for you:)



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