#synthesis lab

[mydonkeyfeet]

I forget if I showed the beautiful Tyrian purple that they made in the synthesis chemistry lab that I collaborated with at the art museum. They’ve been synthesizing mostly blue pigments and dyes from throughout history. This was my first time seeing Tyrian purple in person and I was so excited!

Historically it was made from murex snails and was hugely expensive and used by royalty, but chemically it’s similar to indigo so the class was able to create it in the lab without snails.

[unevenpatterns]

I work in an organic synthesis lab, so pretty fucking bad when it comes to the amount of different toxic chemicals. My guess is we have +3000 bottles / containers in our department alone, but nobody knows the exact number.

From what I can tell through a bit of detective work, the chemicals have not been properly checked for at least a DECADE.

I wish I was making this up. I was hired to fix things and I'm trying, but today scared the crap out of me.

I found in no particular order:

- Hydrofluoric acid. Improperly marked and stored for ?? Years and unknown percent solution. It had turned green. We do not own the antidote.

- 5L 40% hydrogen peroxide. Unknown age but guessing at least 10 years. I had to open it to ensure no pressure built up 🙃

- a cabinet full of solvents that have been there for a minimum of 8 years. Includes at least 2 peroxide forming liquids and it's unclear whether they are stabilised.

For those who don't do chemistry these 3 are respectively: death upon skin contact, explosive risk and bad explosive risk with cancer bonus.

I have retreated to my office for a break to contemplate what the fuck to do about all this.

[unevenpatterns]

I think it's a bit funny how my coworker think I'm this strict safety person who has been hired to come and check on them. Like, oh no, we actually have to follow rules now? Ewww. It's probably my natural mom energy and the amount of times I've told them "We can't do it that way. It's literally illegal."

The reality is that I am super lax with them, because I frankly don't give a fuck if they don't bother to put on a lab coat when all they have to do is check data on a machine in the lab. That is, simply put, not going to kill them.

But I would please, oh so very please, cherry on a top like them to mark all their samples and solutions with labels. And hence, they believe I am "strict" when really, it's because I've found so, so many unidentifiable bottles with mystery liquid. Something that can actually kill us.

On the fridges there are now papers indicating what's inside. I had to put "Mystery" on a box in each fridge. These boxes are full of exactly what it says: mysteries. Weird shit with half labels, no cas number, brand samples full of trade secrets and who knows what else. I only managed to suss out one of the boxes so far and it now says: "Mystery no more mystery :)"

[unevenpatterns]

The Lab - the gift that keeps on giving.

I finally got some ✨new lab coats✨ for the lab. Took 3 months to get them because of course the ordering system was all fucked.

But I learned some... concerning... facts in the process.

We had no lab coats in the smallest size, and the majority were L, XL or bigger. Our lab is mostly petite women 🙃 So first problem: everyone were wearing way too large coats. Annoying at best, a risk for getting your sleeves contaminated and tipping stuff over at worst. Or so I thought.

Then in the process of ordering new ones I had to talk with the company that washes them. They register each coat and how often it's been sent to wash.

Y'all. Some of these coats hadn't been washed for 8 YEARS ☠️☠️☠️

In an organic synthesis lab.

Shiiiit, you might be more safe not putting it on at that point. Who knows how much it's contaminated with.

A side effect of not having the right sizes meant that people kept the few they could find hidden, and made sure not to lose it in the washing system.

+ Of course someone thought it would be fine to store some in random cupboards on top of samples??? WHY. Come on man.

[unevenpatterns]

Why, oh why, do we have cholera toxin in the freezer of our organic synthesis lab.

Buddy, I don't think you belong here.

Did we accidentally adopt you from the bio labs? What happened here?

[unevenpatterns]

Just another day in the lab. One of our new employes wants to order an explosive chemical that would never be used for anything else. I ask how explosive it is and the answer I get is basicly:

It has a looot of blank fields in the safety info because it's so uncommon that it literally hasn't even been fully tested yet.

So we would have an explosive chemical standing around on a shelf and I'll have to pray that no idiot moves it around and looses it to the void that exists in all in uni labs (It might also be illegal for us to own/store, but since it's so uncommon we can't actually find any info on the specifics for this one?).

Can't have that, and I can't send something explosive off to disposal, so I'll have to neutralize it before transport. And while this is probably not super difficult I just... don't want to.

Why would you do this to me dude. Can you not just do some other science? Pretty please. I am lazy and like to keep my blood pressure at a reasonable level.

Not to mention the paperwork. I am currently trying to persuade him to do something else. Anything else really. Pick something that can give us cancer instead, it's frankly easier to deal with. Just not the super cancer ones. They're a bitch to work with too and we've run out of the fancy cancer stickers again.

[unevenpatterns]

I have been out sick from work for a long time this summer. Coming back to the lab has been an ~experience~

Day 1: Scratched my eyelid so bad that I got an infection that needed antibiotics. This happened because I was rubbing my face in despair from listening to an incident report about how a student chemically burned off her nose hair and had to go to the doctor.

Day 2: Cleaning of leftover glassware chaos from summer courses. Strong acid and base necessary.

Day 3: In my absence our senior researcher figured it would be fine to store toxic chemicals in a random corner. This is amongst other reasons, problematic because it is illegal.

Day 4: In an attempt to rectify the above, the last mystery shelf with samples from 1996 was uncovered and I had to deal with that.

Day 5: Mystery dizziness kept me from going to the lab all day.

Day 6: Called in sick.

Day 7: I dropped a super heavy table on my foot, while playing lab furniture tetris to get space for new equipment.

Day 8: ?? Let's see how it goes with moving that table tomorrow.

Wish me luck.

[unevenpatterns]

Another day in the ~Lab~ 🔥📞🧨⚗️🧪

In todays episode: I present to you, my stupid boss. He told the student to use a heating jacket for synthesis that had obvious damage to the wire. "Just be careful and it'll be fine."

Dude. Man. These young ones can't figure out how to properly clamp a piece of glassware and you think they can deal with ancient faulty equipment?

And guess what, it went to shit. One of them leaned on the wire while it was plugged in and that was the last bit that poor abused thing could handle. Apparently the spark it made even lit a small flame and she got a nice little burn on her labcoat. The alarm went off and all the students left the lab even though there was no more danger, because guess what, there was no professor or TA with them because they didn't adjust for how many had joined the course.

This is were I get called in to report whatever tf is going on and we figure out that is short circuited the fumehoods that currently contain a hot reaction mixture and it's starting to smell because, yay, no proper air circulation.

So we have to call the emergency electrician because no one knows where to reset the fumehoods. And I check the "it'll be fine" heating jacket and it is so far from fine that I don't know what he was thinking. There's visible open metal wire in two spots one of which is now very broken after the tiny fire it started. And the rubber covering on the rest of the wire is so cracked and sad that more breaks would inevitably have happened soon.

Thank fuck I have tomorrow off.