{"id":7804,"date":"2007-07-01T07:08:40","date_gmt":"2007-07-01T11:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=7804"},"modified":"2007-07-01T11:48:29","modified_gmt":"2007-07-01T15:48:29","slug":"bonus-lotd-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/?p=7804","title":{"rendered":"BONUS LOTD"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chemistry professor has responsibility for lab safety
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\nIt was deeply distressing to read the News Journal report of a chemical explosion in a Delaware State University laboratory. According to the report, students mixed the strong oxidant nitric acid with a mixture of the organic reductants acetone and ethanol, causing an explosion that destroyed equipment and injured students. While it is clear that safe chemical handling procedures had not been an effective part of student training, there was no mention of a safety provision that may have prevented the accident.<\/p>\n

Although a technical assistant was reported present in the laboratory at the time, there was no report of the presence of the professor. Especially in undergraduate laboratories, the chemistry professor has full responsibility for the safety of students, and the experience and wisdom to sense chemical hazards and take immediate corrective action.<\/p>\n

John F. Neumer, Hockessin<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I know Neumer from my old stomping grounds in South Jersey. He’s absolutely right. And the reaction that the kids ran is ridiculously powerful. Nitric acid and alcohol mixed has been used to propel rockets. <\/p>\n

I’ve actually run this mixture as part of an incident investigation. In an open beaker it’s pretty safe. As soon as you cover it, the NOx start to build up, turning the solution an ugly orange. The NOx autocatalyzes the reaction and a minute or so later– Boom!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chemistry professor has responsibility for lab safety It was deeply distressing to read the News Journal report of a chemical explosion in a Delaware State University laboratory. According to the report, students mixed the strong oxidant nitric acid with a mixture of the organic reductants acetone and ethanol, causing an explosion that destroyed equipment and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7804"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7804\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/cobranchi.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}