Chem Room

Working in the Wet Room

Created by: Pascale Chenevier on 16th June 2003
Last Updated by Buz Barstow on 23rd January 2006

This page contains informations on how to use the wet room:

Working in the wet room, good behaviour rules and legal safety rules

Emergency procedures

Introducing new chemicals in our stock

Keep your own stock up to date

Storage in the deep freezer

How to label products

Waste disposal
Biohazardous waste

Use and disposal of hypodermic needles

FAQ and where is what?

General Rules of Good Practice in the Wet Room

Here are a few very basic safety rules about working in a chemistry room:

You should not work in the wet room when you are alone in the lab.

Leave the door open so that any accident can be easily noticed by others.

When entering the chem room for any purpose, you are required to wear safety glasses. These are available at entrance. As we do not usually use dangerous chemicals, many people don't (shame on them!).
Please place a notice on the door if you are manipulating unusually dangerous chemicals.

Please, take a few minutes before doing anything to prepare your experiment or manipulation: what do you know about the chemical you are planning to use? What kind of risks are associated with it? How do I manipulate it safely? How do I dispose of the waste? How do I clean the table and the room when I am finished? This will save you a lot of time later. The wet room czar or EH&S service can help you get prepared. You must know at least where the corresponding MSDS sheets are.

At the end, clean the table (easier if you have used a plastic-paper sheet on your table) and clean your glassware.
Wash your hands.

Close the door when nobody is in the chem room.
Come back later to replace the glassware that you used on the shelves. Make sure that you invert beakers, put caps on bottles and close the opening on measuring cylinders and flasks to prevent them from gathering dust.

Lab Coats and Clothing

As soon as you use dangerous or corrosive chemicals, you are invited to protect yourself with proper clothing:

Wear closed shoes

Wear long sleeves and pants

Wear a lab coat and, in extreme cases, an apron (stock shelved above the balance)

Wear safety goggles
Check the glove selection sheet and wear gloves that are resistant to the chemicals that you are using

Your lab coat will take up chemicals when you use it. Therefore remember to wash it as often as necessary considering your daily/weekly/monthly use. Please, DO NOT HANG your dirty lab coat on the coat rack in 192. Turn the outside in and roll it, then store it somewhere around your desk if you have nothing toxic on it, or in the chem lab. Then wash your hands.

Washing a Lab Coat

Soak the lab coat in soap and bleach, then wash separately. Inspect for holes and replace if too much damaged.

Emergency Procedures

See the Gruner Emergency page or the EH&S page.

New Chemicals

For the safety of all, we have to keep track of all chemicals we store in the wet room. When buying a new chemical, please:

Check that we do not have it in stock already.

Find and place the MSDS sheet in the MSDS sheet folder.
If it exists read the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP).
Check that you have the correct equipment to handle the chemical. Do you need special gloves or a respirator?

Find out how to store it. Is the chemical temperature or light sensitive? Is it hygroscopic?

When storing a new chemical ask for advice from the wet room czar. The general storage rules are:

If kept in the deep freezer, record the item in the deep freezer web book and label it properly.

If kept in the fridge, store it in your storage bin or register it in the small isolated items box, after proper labeling.

If flammable, store it in the flammable cabinet.

Acids should be stored below the hood in one of the acid boxes. Make sure that it is not next to acetic acid and nitric acid.

Alkaline or oxidant liquids should be stored below the sink.

Dry powders, should be stored in the chemical cabinet after notifying the wet room czar. If the product is an oxidant, it should be stored in the oxidant box.
Hygroscopic chemicals can be stored in the desiccator cabinet, or we can get you a vacuum jar of your own.
If a chemical is for a sensitive experiment such as protein crystallization you may want to label it for your own use only.

Storing Your Own Stock

Inside the Refrigerator

Storing chemicals and samples in the refrigerator will help them last longer.

Get yourself a storage bin for storing your items in the refrigerator. This helps with organization of the refrigerator and keeps incompatible items apart. If you can't find a suitable bin, ask the wet room czar.
Check through your own stock at least once a year. You are responsible for keeping it safe and well labelled and for discarding old samples safely. If your solutions show signs of evaporation such as a salt ring around the rim of the bottle, it is time to dispose of them.
Space in the wet room is limited, so please discard old samples in a timely manner. If you need help with disposal, ask the wet room czar.

Out of the Refrigerator

Keep items that don't require refrigeration in the drawers and on the shelves in the wet room. You should not store chemicals in any other room.

Find an empty shelf or drawer near your work area and claim it. You can label a drawer with your name, but make sure that the label is easily removable by the next owner of the drawer. If you need help, ask the wet room czar.
If you want to store anything on the shelves, place it in a storage bin labelled with your name. If you need help finding a space, ask the wet room czar.
If you need to keep your own pipette tip stock, make sure that it is labelled with your name and put away, or other people will use them.

Storage in the Deep Freezer

<>The deep freeze should be opened only when necessary and only for as long as necessary. This is the best way to protect all of the samples stored in the freezer. The deep freezer has been organized to minimize opening time.
<>

< style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">

<>Do not open the deep freeze and search for items. If you need to find something stored in the deep freezer do not open it until you know exactly where it is stored. Items in your own stock should be picked in 3 seconds from the rack. Items in the archive stock (stored in metal boxes) should be located with the deep freezer web book before opening the deep freezer and looking for the right box. If you use an item completely remember to remove its entry in the deep freezer web book.
<>

< style="font-family: helvetica,arial,sans-serif;">

If you haven't stored items in the deep freeze before ask the wet room czar for help. You will need to:

Get one or several boxes for storage in the racks.
Label your boxes with a 2 or 3 color code and add your code to the identification sheet on top of the deep freezer.
Register your products in the deep freezer web book.

Once you have a box, you are responsible for keeping it clean and up to date.

How to Label Your Items?

As far as possible, keep the original labels on commercial products. Otherwise, find labels on EH&S web page (in chemical safety, Right to Know Chemical Labels).

For non-commercial products or mixtures, write absolutely:

Your name

The date (year minimum)

The full name of the product inside (required by the law), or if too complicated:

A complete reference to a description of the content (Notebook #N page#NN) (MANDATORY IN THIS LAB).

Items stored in the deep freeze rack should be marked with your three color code. There is a list of color codes on the lid of the deep freeze.

Chemical Waste

You can find complete instructions for the disposal of chemical waste in the binders on the shelf to the left of the wet room door or on the EH&S web site under chemical safety. This is a long list so it is often better to ask the wet room czar for help. Take special care with organic solvents, heavy metals, some ions like lithium, organic chemicals containing sulfur and phosphor and fluorescent dyes.

Here are a few common waste procedures:

Broken glass should go to the glass bins.
Chemicals shouldn't go in the glass bins.
Tissues shouldn't go in the glass bins either.
Sharps (needles) go in the red sharp containers. You don't need to put the syringe in with it.
Solvents should go in the chemical waste under the hood. Gather chlorinated solvents together and try to fill up bottles because we pay for each bottle, not by the volume of waste in the bottle! To avoid any dangerous mixture, ask before disposing.
Batteries go to the used battery box.
Crystal trays can be disposed of in the trash but should first be wrapped with tape to prevent spillage.

Biohazardous Waste

At the present time the only potential biohazard in the wet room is a consignment of human hemoglobin crystals. These are stored on the shelves in the center workbench in the wet room and are labelled with a biohazard sticker. There is an emergency set of instructions for dealing with a hemoglobin spill.

Before bringing something into the wet room that may be a biohazard, discuss it with the wet room czar.

There is a biohazard waste bin below the center bench in the wet room and a sharps bin for sharps contaminated with biohazardous material above the center workbench.

Needles

Subcutaneous needles are regulated by NY State. They are kept locked in the needle drawer. The lock code is 4359. You have to log out any needle you take in the needle log book. If a needle is unused and still wrapped you should replace it in the drawer, and enter its return in the needle log book. You should also record the date of disposal of all needles that you use in the log book.

Where is What?

Acids	Below the hood.
Alkaline liquids	Below the sink.
Used battery box	Behind the door.
Pipette tips	Below the microscopes.
Deep freezer boxes and racks	Extra deep freezer boxes and racks above the glassware cabinet on the left of the door; separaters in a card box ("empty boxes") on the shelves above the balance.
Deep freezer web book	ProCite5 database Open ProCite5 from Bigsis/data/literature/ProCite5 and, in this folder, the database /database/freezer.
Flammables	Flammable fireproof cabinet.
Glass bins	Card board boxes on the floor to receive broken glass waste. Extra boxes are available near the ice machine.
MSDS sheet folder	Shelf on your left when entering.
Needles	Needle drawer, down on the right of oven.
Oxidant box	Chemicals cabinet, top right shelf.
Oxidant liquids	Below sink.
Sharp containers	Red hard plastic boxes on shelves above middle table.
Small isolated items box	In the large fridge cabinet, top right.
SOP (Standard Operating Procedures)	Shelf on your left when entering.
Biohazardous waste bin	Below the center bench.
Biohazardous sharps bin	Shelf above the center bench on the side closest to the door.

Where to find an MSDS sheet?	Usually sent with the product, or available on the web site of the provider. Otherwise, check the list on EH&S web page. In desperate cases, call EH&S, they can find it for you.
When do I need to build a Standard Operating Procedure SOP?	For very dangerous products like strong carcinogens, reproductive toxins, acutely toxic drugs and biohazards. Check with EH&S about how to do it, some SOP might already be available, otherwise write your own and register it to EH&S.
In case of an accident in the chem room, what am I suppose to do/know?	You are supposed to be protected properly. Wear a lab coat, glasses and the correct gloves. Find the MSDS sheet for the items involved in the accident. If possible, get Marty, Sol and wet room czar involved as quickly as possible.