What is the most dangerous thing you have ever experienced in a chemistry lab?

In the past, at NTU, during the undergraduate chemistry experiment, it was summer. My classmates put solid sodium hydroxide on the stool as a prank. When I sat on it, I felt like I had been burned by a soldering iron. Fortunately, I reacted quickly. It hurt a little bit through my pants, but it was fine after I washed it. I was furious and would never interact with those people again, but I did not report it.

When I was in graduate school, in order to save money, I didn’t use disposable plastic culture bottles, and most of them still used glass bottles. Cell attachment has very high requirements on the glass surface. If there are even slight impurities, the cells will not be able to attach and will be sacrificed in pieces. Therefore, the bottles are washed with chromic acid washing solution, which consists of potassium dichromate powder added to concentrated sulfuric acid.

There was no point in doing experiments when we first arrived, so we had to wash the bottles first. Take a large pack of twenty or thirty glass bottles out of the chromic acid washing solution, pour out the washing solution, and then wash them repeatedly with tap water.

The faucets in the laboratory are not splash-proof, so I won’t mention this for now.

Nothing happened at the time. A few days later, I found that the fabric on my shoes was flaky and there was a hole when I poked it with my fingers. Then I found that the newly bought down jacket had holes in it, with small holes in the front. The cuffs of clothes also started to unravel.

It turns out that the faucet splashed water on the bottle and landed on the edge of the pool. When washing the bottle, it was inevitable that the front of the bottle would rub against the pool. Water also flowed down from the outside of the pool and dripped onto the shoes. White coats are not waterproof, and water will seep into the clothes.

Although the sulfuric acid and potassium dichromate included in the bottle have a low concentration after being washed with water, as the water evaporates, it will concentrate on the clothes. The final sulfuric acid concentration can reach 70, plus strong Oxidizing potassium dichromate corrodes clothes and can even destroy the chemical fibers of down jackets.

The ground around the pool in the laboratory was full of pits and pits within a 2-meter radius, as if it had been gouged by chisels, and the stainless steel water pipes were full of rust.

Later I asked to be transferred to raising rats, saying that I would not wash the bottles anymore.

I am very careful in what I do. I have never been bitten by a mouse (including rats) or pricked by a needle, and it is estimated that it will not be broken in the future. But the lotion is too tricky to handle. It is a non-volatile, strong oxidizing and corrosive substance. After rinsing several times, the water droplets splashed out will still evaporate and concentrate to become corrosive. Even nitric acid is not so pitiful.

After I went to study abroad, I never saw chromic acid washing solution again, because all the procedures and regulations were very troublesome, and disposable plastic culture bottles were used to culture cells. Australia stipulates that the six prices are swallowed poisons, inhaled extremely toxic substances, and highly toxic water pollutants. It is strictly prohibited to pour them into the sewer in any way. Wastewater and waste liquid must be placed in special containers and handed over to specialized agencies for recycling.

In fact, I just mentioned the specific washing method in one stroke, without going into details, because chromic acid washing liquid is no longer used now, so it is meaningless to talk about it. I see that all the chemists in the comment area are particularly interested in specific washing methods, so I will tell you.

The chromic acid washing liquid is packed in a plastic washbasin, usually with a large basin of 5L.

Pour out the liquid in the culture bottle, rinse it with tap water, pour out the tap water, and put it into the collection In the empty washbasin