CENtral Science

Friday chemical safety round-up

Chemical health and safety news from the past week:

• Theo Gray learned why glove compatibility is important:
  

  As the toluene evaporated, the white phosphorus did what its name implies—it phosphoresced, reacting with oxygen from the air to produce a luminous gas fractions of an inch above the surface of my hand. This reaction is not just risky to create, it’s also difficult to photograph. We used the best low-light camera available to get it to show up so well.

  To the dark-adapted human eye, though, it looks bright, and frankly rather alarming, especially when I took the gloves off and realized that toluene goes through latex.

• Dogs accidentally poison veterinarians: rodenticide zinc phosphide + stomach acid + induced vomiting = phosphine gas in the clinic
• U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis mentioned Sheri Sangji in a piece for Workers Memorial Day (April 28)
• Poor safety record no bar to winning government construction contracts

Fires and explosions:

• An explosion at a Mitsui Chemicals plant in Japan killed one and injured 11 workers
• A broken elbow joint led to molten glas sspilling at a Johns Manville facility in Indiana; “the glass spread throughout the building and threatened to destroy the structure”
• A teacher and three students were burned in a fire in a New York middle school science class; the demonstration involved–yes, you guessed it–methanol

Leaks, spills, and other exposures:

• Roughly 53 liters of toluene spilled in an industrial park in Calgary, Canada
• The University of Virginia chemistry department got a visit from fire and hazmat crews over venting (liquid?) nitrogen tanks

Not covered: meth labs; ammonia leaks; incidents involving floor sealants, cleaning solutions, or pool chemicals; transportation spills; and fires from oil, natural gas, or other fuels.