How to be a Successful Organic Chemist

21 13 getting your hands dirty: chemical handling, washing, waste and safety Introduction In chapter 1 we discussed some of the possible dangers associated with exposure to the chemicals used in organic chemistry labs. In this chapter, we will examine techniques to reduce such exposures.We will also discuss waste and waste management, safety in the lab, and lastly the mental health of the student during the lab experience. 3.1 Gloves: the good, the bad and the ugly When you start to think about ways to handle chemicals to ensure your safety, you likely think about wearing gloves to minimize contact between your skin and the chemical. Let us get one thing straight im- mediately: the gloves 10 may offer only limited protection. This is an important fact because a common mis- conception is that the gloves you find in lab effectively protect the skin from solvents and other substances handled. This is simply not true. To give you one example, the nitrile gloves that are typically made available are easily penetrated, and eventually broken down, by two common (and hazardous) solvents, acetone and dichloromethane. There are several excellent online resources to find information about the permeability of various solvents and reactants. 11 Another reason we wish to alert you to the limitations of lab gloves, is that wearing them can provide a false sense of security, and this can be very dangerous. Imagine you are wearing gloves, First, you now think that they are protecting you. You are perfectly safe. As a result, you might be less careful, or you may pay less attention to the risks involved in tyour experiment. Not only that, once you put on gloves, you probably pay little attention to how you handle the gloves themselves, what we call “glove hygiene”. Common examples of poor glove hygiene (things you must always avoid) include: touching (and con- taminating) your face, skin, hair, or clothes with your gloves, touching (and contaminating) objects like phones, pens, and notebooks, that you will use outside the lab, failing to check gloves periodically for leaks and cracks, and failing to remove gloves each time you leave the lab In general, gloves should only be worn for short periods of time, and exchanged routinely, especially whenever a chemical has been in contact with them. The contaminated exterior of the gloves should never come in contact with your skin.Whenever you are done with your gloves, you should remove them in a safe manner and wash your hands (never use bare hands to remove gloves). 10  The most commonly employed gloves in many teaching labs, are nitrile gloves. There are many different gloves, in general the more cumbersome they are to wear, the better protection they offer. Unfortunately, there are no gloves on the market that are both practical and offer protection against most organic chemicals encountered in undergraduate organic chemistry labs. 11  Ansell has a very good overview. https://www.ansellpro.com/download/Ansell_7thEditionChemicalResistanceGuide. pdf