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Laboratory Accidents
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Reply 40
Original post by marshey
I went to Kingston University recently on a school trip. There was a massive stain on the floor next to one of the fume cupboards. Apparently someone had reacted methylbenzene with nitrous acid (I think) and left it over the weekend. They came in on the monday and the TNT had exploded. Brilliant.
Hahaha! What an experiment to just casually leave to react!
Reply 41
When I was in year 8, we did an experiment that had to end up in the fume cupboard (no idea what). We were queuing up to put it in and someone accidentally touched my blazer with the test tube and it burned a hole right through it.
In year 10 we had to do some experiment and our test tube caught fire, me and the girl I was working with were just stood there because we weren't sure if it was meant to do that >.<
In year 10 we had to do some experiment and our test tube caught fire, me and the girl I was working with were just stood there because we weren't sure if it was meant to do that >.<
Reply 42
The classic error of the noob chemist is trying to destroy POCl3 in ice/water. I've lost count of how many times I've seen new graduates make that mistake (they only do it once, though!).
MP
MP
During my year in industry I heard of a previous student who had a bowl of cardice (frozen CO2) and to get rid of it, he decided to chuck it into a bowl of hot water. The ensuing cloud of CO2 was so massive that the lab had to be evacuated until the extraction system could get rid of all of it.
Reply 44
Original post by Kyri
During my year in industry I heard of a previous student who had a bowl of cardice (frozen CO2) and to get rid of it, he decided to chuck it into a bowl of hot water. The ensuing cloud of CO2 was so massive that the lab had to be evacuated until the extraction system could get rid of all of it.
Ah...the hours of fun to be had with dry ice in the lab! I can highly recommend filling someone's sink with warm water and washing up liquid then throwing in a load of dryice (and running away). Also shoving a handful of dryice in a rubber glove then tying it shut with a cable-tie and hiding it in a filing cabinet is a good laugh (goes with one hell of a bang!)
Admittedly, these can't really be described as accidents...
MP
Most of my accidents, whether at school, college, or Uni always seem to involve breaking expensive pieces of glassware. The most expensive thing being a glass pressure valve that had to be specially fired 
. Thankfully work has determined scientists are clumsy (Im not the only one) and buy plastic glassware where possible
Though there's a couple of accidents that spring to mind
-Corroding a desk with conc H2SO4 in the labs
-Flooding a fume cupboard when running an organic synthesis experiment under pressure
Also, Ive had to treat a couple of people for chemicals in their eyes at work, R+D scientists seem to dislike wearing goggles :P.
. Thankfully work has determined scientists are clumsy (Im not the only one) and buy plastic glassware where possibleThough there's a couple of accidents that spring to mind
-Corroding a desk with conc H2SO4 in the labs
-Flooding a fume cupboard when running an organic synthesis experiment under pressure
Also, Ive had to treat a couple of people for chemicals in their eyes at work, R+D scientists seem to dislike wearing goggles :P.
(edited 13 years ago)
Reply 46
Working opposite Simon during an inorganic synthesis in the second year at Uni he was stirring a strong cyanide solution in a beaker and somehow managed to push his glass rod through the beaker which smashed and cut his hand allowing the cyanide solution to flow freely through the cut. He immediately put his hand under the tap and during about five minutes he stood there shaking and looking very, very scared. We all just watched expecting him to keel over at any minute, but he was OK. It was a very tense session. We bought him a celebratory mug which we had printed with the legend "Cyanide Simon" to commemorate his dice with death...
Reply 47
Teaching a chemistry class one student attached the bunsen burner to the gas tap in a group of four taps. He then turned on a different tap and stood with a match trying in vain to light the bunsen. Eventually the cloud of gas from the second tap got to the match and a jet of flame shot about two metres from the tap unfortunately up the back of a girl with long blond hair who had her back to the bench. All of her hair caught fire and I had to leap onto her to extinguish her while simultaneously turning off the jet of flame.
The smell of burnt hair persisted in that lab for weeks. The girl was OK, not badly burned, but a bit shaken up and needed a good haircut...
The smell of burnt hair persisted in that lab for weeks. The girl was OK, not badly burned, but a bit shaken up and needed a good haircut...
Reply 48
Before a chemistry practical class on redox in the afternoon I asked my Spanish lab tech to prepare 5 litres of potassium manganate (VII) solution and then left for lunch.
When I got back from lunch, ready for the class, the entire school was outside the science building, which had been evacuated. When I investigated further it seems that she had used strong hydrochloric acid to make up the solution instead of sulphuric acid. She had left the mixture stirring on a hot-plate and had gone to lunch herself...
... filling the school up with chlorine gas!
In itself, a lesson in redox...
When I got back from lunch, ready for the class, the entire school was outside the science building, which had been evacuated. When I investigated further it seems that she had used strong hydrochloric acid to make up the solution instead of sulphuric acid. She had left the mixture stirring on a hot-plate and had gone to lunch herself...
... filling the school up with chlorine gas!
In itself, a lesson in redox...
Reply 50
Original post by charco
...All of her hair caught fire and I had to leap onto her to extinguish her...
Yeah, right. That old excuse....
Reply 51
'Best' accident I've seen is when a couple of colleagues many years back were doing a reaction on a large scale which required deprotonating an acetophenone with sodium hydride. Due to the scale required and solubility issues they had the acetophenone dissolved in DMSO (experienced chemists will already know where this is going....)
So they had 4-5 litres of this concentrated solution in a 10-litre split-neck flask in our special ops labs (on the top floor where we did all the dodgy chemistry) and started adding the NaH slowly in portions. Sadly their attempts to keep the thing under control with cooling failed and a runaway Dimsyl Sodium reaction started. They did a runner and the first the rest of us knew of it was a few seconds later when the entire 5-storey building filled with the stench of dimethyl sulfide and the fire alarms went off. Everyone evacuated the building and waited in the carpark as numerous fire engines turned up. It ended with a bunch of guys in HazOps suits bringing this glowing red flask (all the DMSO had boiled off and only a red hot solid mass remained) out through the roof. And the fume cupboard containing the reaction had melted and had to be scrapped!
You can't really call yourself a proper chemist until you've had at least one reaction go up...
MP
So they had 4-5 litres of this concentrated solution in a 10-litre split-neck flask in our special ops labs (on the top floor where we did all the dodgy chemistry) and started adding the NaH slowly in portions. Sadly their attempts to keep the thing under control with cooling failed and a runaway Dimsyl Sodium reaction started. They did a runner and the first the rest of us knew of it was a few seconds later when the entire 5-storey building filled with the stench of dimethyl sulfide and the fire alarms went off. Everyone evacuated the building and waited in the carpark as numerous fire engines turned up. It ended with a bunch of guys in HazOps suits bringing this glowing red flask (all the DMSO had boiled off and only a red hot solid mass remained) out through the roof. And the fume cupboard containing the reaction had melted and had to be scrapped!
You can't really call yourself a proper chemist until you've had at least one reaction go up...
MP
Reply 53
Butanoic acid fumes... about two people throwing up!
Not that special compared to most of these I must say
Not that special compared to most of these I must say
The amount of times I've broken the stop cock on a burette and ruined the titration is ridiculous, or tipped manganate ( or sulphuric acid, cannot remember which goes in the burette) through a funnel but missed and tipped it over the desk.
A friend was making a double salt and tipped her products in the sink in an assessed practical. Started washing and realised half way through what she did.
At uni - so not chemical labs but biology- my lab partner mistook yellow buffer solution for water and we have both face planted gel electrophoresis gels. Mistakes make them so much fun
A friend was making a double salt and tipped her products in the sink in an assessed practical. Started washing and realised half way through what she did.
At uni - so not chemical labs but biology- my lab partner mistook yellow buffer solution for water and we have both face planted gel electrophoresis gels. Mistakes make them so much fun
First ever titration, bald chemistry teacher wanders over to see how it was going, I was topping up my burette, wasn't watching...H2S04 over flowed from the top of my burette which was above head height, sprayed him in acid, including his head :/
Also doing a reflux of something once, propably nitrating something...my pear shaped flask fell out of place because I melted the yellow clip things by accident. Hot conc H2S04 everywhere...
Hot crucibles look the same as cold crucibles, as I learned in Year 12 :/
Also doing a reflux of something once, propably nitrating something...my pear shaped flask fell out of place because I melted the yellow clip things by accident. Hot conc H2S04 everywhere...
Hot crucibles look the same as cold crucibles, as I learned in Year 12 :/
Reply 57
Over the last two years I have had so many. Yes I am a bad chemist.
In my second week of AS chem I began heating a compound in a test tube with a bunsen but put a bung on the end for some reason. Hello projectile rubber bung! Luckily it was angled up in the air and hit the ceiling.
I started off with other classic ones like letting a thermometer roll off the table and shatter on the floor, leaving the teacher to pour yellow powder over it from a bottle labelled 'mercury spills.'
Setting the rubber on the clamp of a retort stand on fire. Breaking a piece of kwik-fit glassware and blaming it on the faulty ket clips, the usual stuff.
[This one involved my teacher and two classmates]
Carring out the oxidation of an alcohol under reflux in a pear shaped flask. My teacher came over to have a look and noticed that some vapour was leaking out of the side when it condensed. The pair of students remembered that they had forgot to add anti bumping granules to the reaction mixture. The apparatus exploded probable due to pressure and hot, green aldehyde was sprayed on my teacher's face. He wears glasses.
Adding concentrated sulfuric acid to cyclohexene and observing the reaction. Nothing happened. The assistant teacher who came over to have a look told me to give it a shake. I put my thumb over the top of the test tube and shook it a little too vigorously. My thumb shot off the top due to the gas produced and brown/black liquid went on my lab partner's tights, my hands and my nice blue jumper (lab coats are for noobs). Thank f*** for plastic gloves. My jumper was singed and now has a hole like my partner's tights.
A month or two ago. Nitration of a phenolic compound. Was told to heat with nitric acid under a bunsen until the liquid boiled and changed colour. Colour was getting a little darker and I continued to heat it as carefully as I could (swear). Contents of tube began to bubble rapidly and ended up shooting a large spray of hot yellow liquid in the air. It landed on the forehead of two of my classmates and I still have the stains in my folder to prove it.
Another personal favourite was a game that my classmates used to play in our GCSE class whenever the teacher left the room, called 'Tools of War'. Rulers, flaming balls of paper and whatever was at hand could be thrown. No glassware though. I went to an all boys secondary
In my second week of AS chem I began heating a compound in a test tube with a bunsen but put a bung on the end for some reason. Hello projectile rubber bung! Luckily it was angled up in the air and hit the ceiling.
I started off with other classic ones like letting a thermometer roll off the table and shatter on the floor, leaving the teacher to pour yellow powder over it from a bottle labelled 'mercury spills.'
Setting the rubber on the clamp of a retort stand on fire. Breaking a piece of kwik-fit glassware and blaming it on the faulty ket clips, the usual stuff.
[This one involved my teacher and two classmates]
Carring out the oxidation of an alcohol under reflux in a pear shaped flask. My teacher came over to have a look and noticed that some vapour was leaking out of the side when it condensed. The pair of students remembered that they had forgot to add anti bumping granules to the reaction mixture. The apparatus exploded probable due to pressure and hot, green aldehyde was sprayed on my teacher's face. He wears glasses.
Adding concentrated sulfuric acid to cyclohexene and observing the reaction. Nothing happened. The assistant teacher who came over to have a look told me to give it a shake. I put my thumb over the top of the test tube and shook it a little too vigorously. My thumb shot off the top due to the gas produced and brown/black liquid went on my lab partner's tights, my hands and my nice blue jumper (lab coats are for noobs). Thank f*** for plastic gloves. My jumper was singed and now has a hole like my partner's tights.
A month or two ago. Nitration of a phenolic compound. Was told to heat with nitric acid under a bunsen until the liquid boiled and changed colour. Colour was getting a little darker and I continued to heat it as carefully as I could (swear). Contents of tube began to bubble rapidly and ended up shooting a large spray of hot yellow liquid in the air. It landed on the forehead of two of my classmates and I still have the stains in my folder to prove it.
Another personal favourite was a game that my classmates used to play in our GCSE class whenever the teacher left the room, called 'Tools of War'. Rulers, flaming balls of paper and whatever was at hand could be thrown. No glassware though. I went to an all boys secondary
Reply 59
University lab technician places winchester of dry ether on the solvent waste bench.
Student decides to pour aqueous waste into winchester.
Water reacts with the sodium, causing hydrogen build up and heat.
Winchester explodes, showering plastic coated glass everywhere, combined with lit ether and a fireball of rising hydrogen.
I was about 6ft away at the time and had by back covered in burning ether. Thank God for lab coats and safe-break bottles!
Student decides to pour aqueous waste into winchester.
Water reacts with the sodium, causing hydrogen build up and heat.
Winchester explodes, showering plastic coated glass everywhere, combined with lit ether and a fireball of rising hydrogen.
I was about 6ft away at the time and had by back covered in burning ether. Thank God for lab coats and safe-break bottles!
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