24/02/2015

EAST LANSING, MI (WLNS) – Employees were working with a chemical they’ve used before inside a building that is part of MSU’s F-RIB facility.

“It’s standard procedure within the operation of the facility, so nothing special that they did or didn’t try out,” said Georg Bollen, Experimental Systems Divisions, director, F-RIB.

F-RIB’s experimental systems director says something went wrong when employees tried to neutralize or throw away a chemical. A strong odor soon emerged.

“I don’t think we really know what happened.”

What did happen though soon after the odor developed, was an alarm went off, alerting the 10 employees inside to quickly exit the building.

Read More....

04/03/2015

A researcher was injured after an explosion in a chemistry laboratory at the University of Liverpool.

Paramedics and fire crews, including the specialist HazMat team, were called to the chemistry building on Oxford Street at around 8.50am following the incident on the fourth floor.

Eyewitnesses reported several windows were blown out in the blast, which involved a chemical at the site, and the area outside was cordoned off.

The man who was injured, a post-graduate researcher, was given first aid at the scene by paramedics.

He is believed to have suffered burns to his hands and face, while two other people thought to have been in the laboratory at the time of the explosion were uninjured.

Read More....

02/01/13

Scientists may have a false sense of security about the safety of their laboratories, according to early results from the first international survey of researchers’ workplace attitudes and practices.

Some 86% of the roughly 2,400 scientists who responded said that they believe their labs are safe places to work. Yet just under half had experienced injuries ranging from animal bites to chemical inhalation, and large fractions noted frequent lone working, unreported injuries and insufficient safety training on specific hazards.

Read more.....

 9/3/2015

Bomb disposal experts were called to a university campus after a student's experiment went wrong, creating a chemical that is 'highly volatile' and at risk of causing a huge explosion.

Students had to be evacuated and emergency services called after concerns were raised about a sample of a acetone peroxide - a highly dangerous chemical often used in improvised attacks by terrorists - being accidentally turned into an explosive form at a Manchester University laboratory. 

The incident came just hours after a student was injured after a chemical explosion at a Liverpool University lab, which was so forceful it blew off the doors and broke windows.

Read More.....

17/02/2016

An explosion on Tuesday in a chemistry lab at the University of Minnesota injured a graduate student. The student was making trimethylsilyl azide.

The student injured his arm and side, and he needed surgery to deal with glass shards.

The location of the student’s injuries indicates that he was reaching into the hood when the explosion happened.

“I have concerns over the level of recognition of hazard and risk mitigation, but I don’t know enough yet about what exactly was done and not done,” Tolman said.

http://cenblog.org/the-safety-zone/2014/06/explosion-injures-university-of-minnesota-graduate-student/