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Chemical Safety Headlines From Google
Wednesday, June 17, 2020 at 7:40:57 AM
A service of the ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety
Connecting Chemistry and Safety at http://www.dchas.org
All article summaries and tags are archived at http://pinboard.in/u:dchas
Table of Contents (6 articles)
POLICE & FIRE: EMPLOYEES EVACUATED FROM DENSO PLANT AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
Tags: us_mi, release, industrial, injuries, acids
B.C. TEACHER SUSPENDED, TRANSFERRED AFTER STARTING FIRE IN SCIENCE CLASSROOM
Tags: canada, education, follow-up, illegal, ammonium_dichromate
NEAR MISS INVOLVING RED PHOSPHORUS
Tags: us_ma, laboratory, explosion, follow-up, phosphorus
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET BACK TO THE LAB AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Tags: us, laboratory, discovery, environmental
RUSSIA MAY HAVE HID NUCLEAR EXPLOSION IN 2017, NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS
Tags: Russia, public, follow-up, environmental, radiation, uranium, waste
WOMAN DIES IN CHEMICAL BLASTPHNOM PENH POST
Tags: Thailand, industrial, explosion, death, dust
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POLICE & FIRE: EMPLOYEES EVACUATED FROM DENSO PLANT AFTER CHEMICAL SPILL
https://www.battlecreekenquirer.com/story/news/2020/06/16/police-fire-workers-evacuated-denso-plant-after-chemical-spill/3198139001/
Tags: us_mi, release, industrial, injuries, acids
CHEMICAL SPILL: One person was treated at Bronson Battle Creek but returned to work after a 300 gallon tank of pretreatment chemicals containing diluted sulfuric acid and hydrofluoric acid leaked at Denso thermal manufacturing facility at 1 Denso Road in the Fort Custer Industrial Park. The company said the tank breached and about 100 gallons were released inside the plant 1 Denso Road. Battle Creek firefighters were called at 3:47 a.m. Tuesday and Andrew Rickerman, senior regional public relations specialist at Denso, said several dozen employees were evacuated by 3:55 a.m. The company said employees were returned to the building about 7:50 a.m. Firefighters went to the scene but said they did not require the department's hazardous materials unit and that chemical engineers at the plant handled cleanup. The company is investigating the cause of the leak, Rickerman said.
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B.C. TEACHER SUSPENDED, TRANSFERRED AFTER STARTING FIRE IN SCIENCE CLASSROOM
https://theprovince.com/news/local-news/b-c-teacher-suspended-transferred-after-starting-fire-in-science-classroom/wcm/41dd6460-fa27-4848-b02f-186cd8d4ad62
Tags: canada, education, follow-up, illegal, ammonium_dichromate
The suspension followed an overnight fire in the science classroom at George Elliot Secondary School in Lake Country.
A B.C. chemistry teacher has been suspended for three days for starting a fire at an Okanagan Valley school that caused $60,000 in damage.
The teacher, Allen Penner, was also suspended 10 days by the Central Okanagan School District, after an overnight fire in the science classroom at George Elliot Secondary school in Lake Country.
The Feb. 16, 2018, incident followed a demonstration in Penner‰??s Grade 9 science class, ‰??which involved the decomposition process of ammonium dichromate by making a chemical volcano,‰?? according to a ruling from B.C.‰??s commissioner for teacher regulation, Howard Kushner.
According to the commissioner, ‰??Penner conducted the demonstration contrary to safety guidelines.‰?? He didn‰??t wear safety goggles, a lab coat, gloves or a vent hood, and he failed to properly dispose of the leftover hazardous waste, which contained an oxidizing chemical.
Instead of placing the residue in the school‰??s hazardous waste containers, Penner wet it down, wrapped it in paper towels and threw it into a garbage can.
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NEAR MISS INVOLVING RED PHOSPHORUS
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.chas.0c00059
Tags: us_ma, laboratory, explosion, follow-up, phosphorus
A recent near miss involving ignition of a small amount of red phosphorus was investigated. The near miss is discussed in detail along with the root cause investigation. Six possible root causes were examined. Three were deemed unlikely, and three were either probable or likely root causes. In the end, electrostatic discharge appears to be the most likely root cause. The Case Study serves to remind scientists about the importance of keeping a clutter-free work area and about hazards associated with common reagents.
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WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO GET BACK TO THE LAB AMID THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC
https://cen.acs.org/careers/employment/need-know-back-lab-amid/98/i24
Tags: us, laboratory, discovery, environmental
Lights are coming back on and experiments are returning to life. After months of being shut down to stop the spread of COVID-19, research activity is ramping up again in labs across the country and around the globe. As we feel the excitement of heading back to the work that motivates us and is critical to our career progress, it is also important to recognize that we are returning to a ‰??new normal‰?? that will require different ways of working and managing our time and projects. As we all adapt to this new normal, we can benefit from practicing a different type of management: expectation management.
Managing your own expectations. If you‰??re a grad student or a postdoc scholar, as excited as you may be to get back to the lab, it‰??s important to recognize that you have been away for several months. This means that you will need time to get samples and reagents back in order or to revive cell lines or other biological experiments before you can go about your work as efficiently as before the shutdown. There is also the reality that time away from any activity causes your muscle memory to fade. I took 4 months off to travel the country before starting my postdoc, and I vividly recall standing at my hood in confusion as my brain knew what needed to be done to perform a liquid-liquid extraction, yet my hands had inexplicably forgotten how to operate a separatory funnel.
On top of the challenges of readapting to research activities, it is likely that you will be wearing a mask, planning your movements in order to stay 6 ft. away from anyone else in the lab, and trying to fit all of your experiments into a rigidly defined shift schedule. Recognize that until you adjust to these changes, each of these things will require a significant cognitive load. So be kind to yourself if it feels more difficult than before to focus on your work. Finally, it‰??s important to manage your expectations on how long this new normal might last. While there were signs that the shutdown would likely last for a few months, the working conditions that we are under right now could remain in place until there is a vaccine for COVID-19, and that could be a while.
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RUSSIA MAY HAVE HID NUCLEAR EXPLOSION IN 2017, NEW EVIDENCE SUGGESTS
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-nuclear-accident-mayak-facility-new-evidence-2020-6
Tags: Russia, public, follow-up, environmental, radiation, uranium, waste
For the past three years, a group of scientists called the "Ring of Five" has been inching toward the conclusion that an undisclosed nuclear accident took place in Russia in 2017.
In July 2019, the group released evidence that an explosion may have occurred at the Mayak nuclear facility ‰?? once the center of the Soviet nuclear-weapons program. Mayak was also the site of the 1957 Kyshtym explosion, the world's third-worst nuclear accident behind Fukushima and Chernobyl.
In late 2019, the scientists suggested that, given the large amount of radiation admitted on the date, the accident took place on September 26, 2017. The radiation seemed to spread from Russia's Southern Urals region (where the Mayak facility is located) toward central Europe, Scandinavia, and Italy.
A third study, released Monday, offers "irrefutable proof" that the explosion was linked to nuclear waste reprocessing ‰?? a method that separates plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel. The Mayak facility is the largest nuclear reprocessing facility in the region. That makes it the most likely, if not the only possible, origin site ‰?? though Russia has never acknowledged a nuclear accident at the facility in 2017.
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WOMAN DIES IN CHEMICAL BLASTPHNOM PENH POST
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/woman-dies-chemical-blast
Tags: Thailand, industrial, explosion, death, dust
Battambang officials are warning about the dangers of chemical powder after a female worker died on Saturday in an explosion while smashing sodium chloride to spray on longan plants.
Ratanak Mondol district police chief Sorn Nil told The Post on Sunday that the victim, Yean Ya, 30, had been working at the longan farm for just five days and was paid 30,000 riel ($7.50) a day to mix chemical powder to fertilise the plants.
‰??She took the chemical to put in the tank and smashed it to become powder but then it exploded,‰?? he said.
Nil said the incident happened around 1:30pm and when the police went to the scene they found the longan tree broken in two due to the force of the blast.
‰??The victim was found 3m from the explosion and her body was severed from the waist down and torn to shreds,‰?? he said.
The victim had worked doing the same thing in Thailand for 10 years, according to a co-worker and had experience in mixing the chemical.
Police have classified the incident as an accident and will not take any action against the farm‰??s owner.
Ratanak Mondol district governor In Saorith said on Monday that it‰??s important to educate residents about the dangers of chemicals.
‰??I have also told the department of agriculture in Ratanak Mondol district to educate the farmers on the right way to handle chemicals,‰?? he said.
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