Yesterday... I found a open bottle of old and empty but with residue liquid 60% perchloric acid in the laminar flow bench....

Yesterday... I found a open bottle of old and empty but with residue liquid 60% perchloric acid in the laminar flow bench....

Here it comes...

With the opened by date from the year "2020"on it!

Fucking bottle stood open in the bench for 6 god damn years.
Salt crust at the top.

I really don't know what the fuck is wrong with people in the lab🤯

#laboratory #heidelberg #medicine #kaboom #chemistry #science

Yesterday... I found a open bottle of old and empty but with residue liquid 60% perchloric acid in the laminar flow bench....

Here it comes...

With the opened by date from the year "2020"on it!

Fucking bottle stood open in the bench for 6 god damn years.
Salt crust at the top.

I really don't know what the fuck is wrong with people in the lab🤯

#laboratory #heidelberg #medicine #kaboom #chemistry #science

@Birk_lab scratc scary! is it a perchlorate-rated hood? My understanding is that you can also get dangerous accumulation in the ducts.

@GetzlerChem considering how laminar flow hoods work, are there any rated as safe for perchloric?? @Birk_lab

@GetzlerChem considering how laminar flow hoods work, are there any rated as safe for perchloric?? @Birk_lab

@titania @GetzlerChem @Birk_lab I was wondering the same thing!

@SRLevine @titania this feels a little like maybe the way chemists get shocked by how geologists handle HF and artists handle paint thinner. I hope it doesn’t feel like a pile on! Just concerned that @Birk_lab stay as safe as possible!

@titania @Birk_lab I have no idea. I just remember ClO4- salts being something that many pretty otherwise bold synthetic folks would try to avoid due to all the special extra engineering controls and those hoods being limited and in inconvenient locations. Mostly I was encountering it as a potentially non-coordinating anion, not a strong oxidizer, so there was rarely cause to go through the trouble and I didn’t learn beyond that

@GetzlerChem @titania @Birk_lab We might also be having a terminology issue, the first time I ever used a tissue culture hood I was appalled because the air was blowing at me! Turns out the word hood covers a large variety of devices that move air in different patterns depending on the experiment, which blew my poor little chemistry brain.

@GetzlerChem @titania @SRLevine of course it's not a perchloric acid rated hood. Don't ask, I have no explanation other than people are stupid. I have been praying it down there for months directly after I started. Maybe it's Corona brain damage

Also been saying for over 6 months that the reason the IS we use for LCMS has often a too high standard deviation from the calibration coz everybody Pipettes differently, of course they also do it wrong. The companies the LCMS are leased from are constantly there not figuring out why our deviation is often so high... But according to the group lead xD it wouldn't matter how you pipette xD

Perchloric acid hoods would use a water spray/ mist system to directly remove any perchlorates from the air I think.

@SRLevine @GetzlerChem @titania no it's a chemistry hood, not a cell culture one.
XD having the 60% blown directly into you face xD

@Birk_lab I mean, I'm a chemist, was not using it for tissue work. Laminar flow hoods are a specific design that is supposed to reduce particulates on the bench...they're used in bio applications, sure, but the particulate control is important for semicon stuff too. Didn't blow toward my face but it does move air in such a way that I'd be surprised if they're rated for perchloric...

@SRLevine @GetzlerChem

@titania @Birk_lab @SRLevine oh I've never thought of the particulate control aspect and applications to clean room settings. instantly makes sense, just was so hard-wired to think of laminar flow as control for biological contamination. which is, of course, effectively just particular particulates

@GetzlerChem @titania @SRLevine well it's curious. While in the USA every university seems to have very strict rules and requirements for perchloric acid, not in Germany though. Or at least I couldn't find any actual solid handling manual besides the standard SDS. But the SDS basically leave the handling open for interpretation.

@Birk_lab @titania @SRLevine you have my sincere sympathy trying to sort this out. I assume there is not a particularly capable environmental health and safety office that can help out?

@GetzlerChem @titania @SRLevine well... It all flared up in January when I basically got blamed for everything going wrong there. I'm just a technical lab assistant there since September last year. I was asked by QM to point out things that go wrong in the lab coz they want to get accredited. Even contacted the workers council to get it recorded that I'm not to blame for any of it. Left me not caring after January but the find of the salty crusty opened bottle is kind of next level shit. Before I joined them they didn't even use the hood or any protection while working with it and they vortexed open vials while pipetting 10% perchloric into it. Sure, safer but still blew my mind.

I think coz with an acid like concentrated sulfuric acid, you'd instantly see the effect and the danger of it while I understand perchloric is more dangerous, you don't instantly see it's effects directly.

So to get them to use the hood I really had to annoy the prof. And QM while instead of being thankful I pointed that stuff out they are annoyed by it. I don't get where my error in my thinking is... Humans are stupid can't be always the answer.

I could even anonymously blow the whistle even though of course it would be obvious it was me. But what should happen other than I piss off the prof?

Same with the LCMS results, we so often are cheating with the QCs so they are below 20% deviation...I can't assess if it's medically problematic but technically my mind screams.

@GetzlerChem @titania @SRLevine like when we have to use a system calibration from 3 weeks ago coz the other 6 done since then don't fit with the latest analysis.

@Birk_lab I don't think it's just the US, friends in Canada were also subject to similar rules re: perchloric (well, more like "guidelines", but since they're guidelines to prevent fire...yeah). having washdown capability is a pretty good idea if you're working with any significant amount. 🫠 doesn't sound as though your lab *was*, at least until they left it open to evaporate...? which, uh, yikes. @GetzlerChem @SRLevine

@GetzlerChem @titania @SRLevine well... It all flared up in January when I basically got blamed for everything going wrong there. I'm just a technical lab assistant there since September last year. I was asked by QM to point out things that go wrong in the lab coz they want to get accredited. Even contacted the workers council to get it recorded that I'm not to blame for any of it. Left me not caring after January but the find of the salty crusty opened bottle is kind of next level shit. Before I joined them they didn't even use the hood or any protection while working with it and they vortexed open vials while pipetting 10% perchloric into it. Sure, safer but still blew my mind.

I think coz with an acid like concentrated sulfuric acid, you'd instantly see the effect and the danger of it while I understand perchloric is more dangerous, you don't instantly see it's effects directly.

So to get them to use the hood I really had to annoy the prof. And QM while instead of being thankful I pointed that stuff out they are annoyed by it. I don't get where my error in my thinking is... Humans are stupid can't be always the answer.

I could even anonymously blow the whistle even though of course it would be obvious it was me. But what should happen other than I piss off the prof?

Same with the LCMS results, we so often are cheating with the QCs so they are below 20% deviation...I can't assess if it's medically problematic but technically my mind screams.