Emergency services received a call at 11:47 BST on Thursday reporting a fire in a chemical lab in the David Keir building on Stranmillis Road.

Six fire engines, two "specialist appliances" and a mobile command unit went to the incident.

An investigation is under way to determine how the fire started.

In a statement, the Northern Ireland Fire and Rescue service said: "Fire crews dealt with a fire in a chemical storeroom of a laboratory on the third floor of the four-storey building.

"It was quite a challenging incident for firefighters to deal with due to the extensive size of the building and the nature of what was involved in the fire."

"Fire crews ventilated the building and the incident was dealt with at 16:10 BST. Early indications would suggest the fire was accidental."

No-one was injured during the alert. A spokesman for QUB said it was too early to say what caused the fire and that a storeroom had been extensively damaged.

MIDLAND, Mich.—May 22, 2012—The Dow Chemical Company (NYSE: DOW) and The Pennsylvania State University are expanding their strategic partnership by launching a pilot program to increase safety awareness and practices in the university’s Departments of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, and Materials Science and Engineering. The program will leverage key elements of Dow’s best-in-class practices to help elevate university laboratory safety.

In April, Dow announced a similar safety partnership pilot program with the University of Minnesota. This new partnership with Penn State reinforces Dow’s commitment to stimulate collaborative innovation with U.S. universities. Dow announced in October 2011 it would invest $25 million per year for 10 years among 11 academic institutions, including Penn State, to strengthen research in scientific fields important to Dow and to the nation’s future.

“A core part of our mission at Dow is to support universities and help them continue the tradition of excellence in chemical engineering, chemistry, and materials science,” said Dr. William F. Banholzer, Ph.D., executive vice president and Dow’s chief technology officer. “Dow recognizes that laboratory safety is a continuing challenge for universities everywhere, and we have the expertise to be part of the solution. This pilot program leverages Dow’s strength in creating and sustaining a culture of safety in our labs — a culture that centers on driving behavior toward incident prevention, with a high level of employee engagement.”

PRINCETON — A Princeton University researcher was treated for chemical burns to her face today when a glass container of acid shattered in a lab in the campus’ new chemistry building.
The female postdoctoral researcher was taken to University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro for minor burns, said Martin Mbugua, a Princeton spokesman. The university did not release her name.
A graduate student who was in the laboratory at the time was also hospitalized as a precaution, Mbugua said. A public safety officer responding to the scene was also taken to the hospital to determine if tingling he experienced in his arm was related to exposure to the acid.
The accident occurred around 1:19 p.m. in a lab in Frick Chemistry Building, campus officials said.
"Nitric acid had been mixed with a solvent in the container, causing a reaction that built up pressure," university officials said in a statement. "When the container broke, the impact forced open the cabinet door, which struck the researcher, bruising her right knee."
The researcher was wearing eye protection and rubber gloves, campus officials said.
About 300 people evacuated the building for about two hours while rescue crews and hazardous materials teams cleared the spill, Mbugua said. About 150 students taking a final exam were moved to another building.

While a researcher fractionally distilled the primary phosphine (C6F5)PH2, which was synthesized by the reduction of (C6F5)PCl2 with an excess of lithium aluminum hydride (LAH), the distillation apparatus containing the phosphine detonated. Fortunately, because the researcher was wearing appropriate personal protective equipment and working in front of a sliding blast shield, only minor injuries resulted from the explosion.

The researcher was following a literature prep for the synthesis of (C6F5)PH2 (Z. Naturforschg.1966, 21b, 920), wherein (C6F5)PCl2 was reduced with an excess (2.1 M equiv based on Li) of LAH. After the reaction was completed, the slurry was filtered and ether was evaporated from the filtrate, yielding an oil and some LAH. This mixture was then extracted into hexanes to remove the remaining LAH, and the resulting phosphine/hexanes mixture was fractionally distilled under N2. After the hexanes were fractionally distilled away and the distillation apparatus was at approximately 50 °C, the apparatus detonated.

The source of the incident is being investigated. Work with this molecule and similar compounds should be conducted carefully until the exact cause of this incident is determined and reported.

After a science class fire at Maple Grove Junior High last year left several students injured, Osseo School District did an audit on its teacher-led science classroom demonstrations.

A May 17, 2012 memo from Osseo School District Assistant Superintendent Keith Jacobus to Superintendent Kate Maguire outlined the audit process as well as the results. The demonstration reportedly used in the ninth-grade science class at Maple Grove Junior High on Dec. 1, 2011 was suspended immediately in the district following the accident.

MAPLE GROVE, Minn. - The Osseo School District is making changes to its teacher-led science demonstrations after four students were injured in a classroom accident several months ago.

In the 71-page report, the methanol demonstration that burned the students back in December will not be allowed pending further review. It has not been used in the classroom since the accident.

It's called the "Whoosh - Flash Bottle" demonstration where someone drops a match into a jug of methanol.

The report also calls for a more stringent approval process for science demonstrations, a detailed list of approved demonstrations, and all secondary science teachers will now have to watch videos on science safety.

PUPILS had to be evacuated from a secondary school after a chemical alert.

Several fire crews and a hazardous material unit were sent to the school yesterday morning after reports of fumes.

The incident involved chemicals in a science preparation room at Brine Leas school in Nantwich.

The substances which sparked the alert were removed from the building and are now being disposed of by a specialist company.

Members of Lincoln Fire and Rescue's Hazardous Materials Team responded Wednesday night to a chemical spill at Saint Elizabeth Regional Medical Center.
Monitoring equipment mounted in the hospital’s lab detected a small amount of ethylene oxide, which is used to sterilize equipment, at 9:52 p.m., Lincoln Fire and Rescue Assistant Chief Pat Borer said.
The amount detected was below the guidelines for permissible levels set by the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, he said.
Borer said the staff was calibrating equipment when the chemical was detected. While the lab was evacuated, the rest of the hospital continued to operate  normally.
Hazmat team members entered the room to monitor for the chemical but did not detect any. They allowed  the room to be reoccupied and left the scene after 45 minutes, Borer said.

LORTON, Va. (WUSA) -- The Fairfax County Fire Department has brought a fire under control that injured three people at a business in the Lorton area of the county. The injuries were described as minor.

Firefighters got the call about 10:45 a.m. Wednesday for a report of a fire and explosion at 10440 Furnace Road. A spokesperson says the fire broke out at a chemical lab. The site houses several businesses including a Five Guys, Stuart Kitchens and American Systems Corp.

Renee Stilwell with Fairfax County Fires says there was a malfunction in an air-handling unit at the lab  and no chemical was involved. The business however, does handle what was described as a "petroleum based product" so a hazmat unit was dispatched to the scene.

Things I Won't Work With: Selenophenol
Posted by Derek
This fine reagent was mentioned here (disparagingly) in the comments the other day, and I knew that it was time to add it to the list. I've had some other selenium entries before, and they're all here for the same reason: their unsupportable stenches. Everyone, even people who've never had a chemistry class in their lives, knows that sulfur compounds are stinky, of course, but it's a problem that continues as you move down Group XVI of the periodic table.

FORT COLLINS - A PhD student was injured in an explosion at a lab in the CSU chemistry building this morning while working with fluorine potassium chloride and water, according to Colorado State University spokesman Mike Hooker.

A vial of liquid exploded, and the student was taken to Medical Center of the Rockies for treatment.

"He was cut by the glass from that vial," Hooker said, adding that he hasn't yet confirmed other injuries. 

The incident occurred shortly before 10 a.m., and the scene was deemed to be safe enough not to stage an evacuation. CSU Environmental Health Services cleaned up the chemicals.

Hooker said he didn't yet know what occurred with the compounds to cause the explosion.

INVESTIGATIONS have begun into what went wrong during a science experiment that left two Tumbarumba High School students with facial burns yesterday.
A boy and girl, both 15, suffered superficial burns after an explosion involving a Bunsen burner about 9.30am.

The pair were in a stable condition at Wagga Base Hospital last night.

NSW Education Department spokesman Grant Hatch said the explosion happened during a year 9, period one class.

The students were undertaking a practical science lesson supervised by an experienced teacher, he said.

A crucible being heated on a Bunsen burner by a group of three students exploded, injuring two students.

The teacher and other staff immediately applied first aid until paramedics arrived.

The Southcare helicopter was called but was not needed.

Mr Hatch said instructions for the experiment were provided on the board and in a textbook.

Measured chemicals were provided to each group by the teacher.

Mr Hatch did not know what chemicals were involved.

The school was continuing investigations into the cause. Police were also on the scene.

“Inquiries are continuing but unless there’s some kind of criminal activity the investigation will be handed to WorkCover,” Albury Insp John Wadsworth said.

A fire investigator and WorkCover inspector were at the school yesterday afternoon conducting a preliminary investigation into the explosion.

Mr Hatch said students and teachers would be provided counselling.

He said the school was not severely damaged by the explosion but that the lab had been shut to allow for a clean-up.

State and federal health officials are investigating how a rare and virulent bacteria strain appears to have killed a young researcher at a VA hospital's infectious diseases lab in San Francisco, setting off alarms that the man's friends and fellow researchers may have also been exposed.
The 25-year-old laboratory researcher at San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center died Saturday morning shortly after asking friends to take him to the hospital. For the week and months before his death, he had been handling a bacteria linked to deadly bloodstream infections at the VA hospital's Northern California Institute for Research and Education, said Peter Melton, a spokesman for the California Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
The man, whose name has not been released, was working with fellow researchers to develop a vaccine for a bacterial strain that causes septicemia and meningitis. Hours after he left work, however, the germ that he was studying took his own life.
"He left the lab around 5 p.m." Friday, said Harry Lampiris, chief of the VA hospital's infectious diseases division. "He had no symptoms at all."
Two hours later, however, the Treasure Island resident reported to his girlfriend he was feeling sick with a headache, fever and chills, Lampiris said. Not until Saturday morning did the symptoms grow worse with a body rash. He asked friends to take him to the hospital but fell unconscious in the car and had no
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A report of an acid spill prompted the evacuation of two buildings and a HazMat response at the Illinois Institute of Technology on the South Side on Tuesday afternoon.

About 1:30 p.m., a Level 2 HazMat response was called for a reported acid spill in the basement of 3110 S. State St., Fire Media Affairs spokesman Will Knight said. That building, as well as a second at 3105 S. State St., were evacuated.

But a spokesman for the school said there was no spill. The HazMat response was secured about 3:40 p.m.

Jeanne Hartig, vice president of communications at IIT, said students were conducting a regular chemical inventory in the Engineering 1 Building when they found a safety container holding a material used for etching metals.

The students were unfamiliar with the substance and contacted the school’s Public Safety department to be “extra cautious,” she said.

A source said the students were checking materials in the science building when they found expired and possibly dangerous materials, but Hartig would not confirm that information, though she said there had not been an acid spill.

The police Bomb and Arson Unit was removing the material from the building with firefighters’ assistance, Fire Media Director Larry Langford said. About 200 people were evacuated from the two buildings.

ARLINGTON — A student suffered minor injuries in an accident Thursday evening in the Chemistry and Physics Building at the University of Texas at Arlington.

UTA spokeswoman Kristin Sullivan said a student was capping a bottle of nitric acid and the bottle broke. The student was treated at the scene.

A hazmat fire was reported at Hair Systems Inc., a multinational distributor of hair products whose warehouse is located at 30 Park Ave. in Englishtown, at approximately 12:30 p.m. Friday, an Englishtown Police Department dispatcher confirmed.
...
The fire began in back of the warehouse in a section of the building called a "powder room" where some type of manufacturing or packaging was located, according to Hall. The building is mostly used for storage, little  distribution is done at the warehouse, but chemical research is done at the facility, Hall said. A vat containing an oxidizing chemical ignited in the powder room, and the fire was mostly contained to the vat.

The fireman moved the vat out of the "powder room" and used copious amounts of water to douse the flames which sparked a fire due to a chemical reaction, which Hall said was the only treatment to combat such a type of fire.

Heavy smoke conditions were observed and a decontamination trailer, supplied by Manalapan Township Fire Company #1, was activated for the fireman who directly combatted the hazmat fire.

Natrona County Fire crews responded to a science experiment gone wrong this morning at Midwest High School. A small fire from a chemical reaction caused the incident that investigators describe as accidental. One student was treated and released with a chemical burn.

Natrona County Fire Investigator Dave Baker, says they got the call around 9am

“There was smoke in the hallway and in one of the class rooms. Upon interior examination they found an area in the chemistry lab where there as a small fire, but the fire had actually burned itself out.”

Baker says there was no structure damage and the fire was isolated to a counter top. He declined to release any more details about the chemicals involved until the investigation is complete, but he did say it was an experiment they’d done many times before without incident.

No explosion or chemical release accompanied the fire.

The incident occurred just after 9am.  First responders isolated the area and classes were sent home for the day.

A SCIENCE teacher suffered burns after a chemical exploded during a demonstration to pupils at Garstang Community Academy.

The teacher was conducting a experiment in a science laboratory using silver nitrate when the chemical flared up, leaving her with burns to her face and hands.

Paramedics were called to the scene at 10.52am yesterday and were joined by 10 firefighters from Garstang and Lancaster and police.

The 49-year-old woman was taken to the Royal Preston Hospital. No pupils were hurt.

There was no fire for crews to extinguish, but there was damage to a desk and a wall.

Dow Chemical and the University of Minnesota (UMN) announced on Monday a pilot program to improve laboratory safety in the university’s chemistry and chemical engineering laboratories.

UMN is one of the universities benefiting from a program Dow announced last year in which the company is investing $25 million per year for 10 years in research programs at 11 academic institutions. The new safety program is independent of that effort but germinated in the relationship established between Dow and the university, says Frank S. Bates, head of UMN’s chemical engineering and materials science department.

The safety program also extends beyond research programs sponsored by Dow. Central to the effort is a Joint Safety Team (JST) made up of the safety officers from every chemistry and chemical engineering research group. “All of those safety officers will be interacting with Dow and working together to learn best safety practices” from the company, says William B. Tolman, chair of the chemistry department.

- The Longmont Fire Department's hazardous material unit responded to Twin Peaks Charter Academy, 340 S. Sunset St., on Wednesday afternoon after school officials found a small container of oxidized sodium.

The sodium was in a locked science chemical storage area, according to school officials.

Principal B.J. Buchmann said the substance was discovered at about 12:30 p.m. Students were moved to a different area of the school for the rest of the day, he said.

After school was dismissed, firefighters removed the substance from the school, Buchmann said.

Two students were taken to Christchurch Hospital after an explosion at Canterbury University.

Police, St John and the Fire Service rushed to the University of Canterbury's Rutherford building after reports of a "small explosion" at 12.36pm, a Fire Service spokesman said.

Science vice-chancellor Professor Paul Fleming said a male research student was working in a laboratory on the sixth floor of the Rutherford building when a flask exploded.

"He has some injuries to his hand," he said.

A female student in the lab suffered neck injuries.

A St John spokesman said the two students were taken to Christchurch Hospital with minor injuries.
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Burford did not know what type of chemical was involved, but there was no risk to people in the area.

The University of Vermont and the city of Burlington have been fined by the Department of Environmental Conservation over environmental violations.

In August 2010, inspections by a DEC hazardous waste inspector found records violations at several of the university’s laboratories, which are subject to the state’s waste regulations.

The university was fined $19,660.The inspector found that records of self-inspections in the sampled laboratories were not consistently maintained, that the records used for laboratory self-assessments were not those that are required, that some storage containers were mislabeled and that laboratories didn’t take adequate corrective actions after learning of violations.

The university subsequently implemented corrective actions for all labs involved in the DEC inspections and implemented a new healthy and safety policy and compliance oversight procedure.

SPARTA — Water from wet paper towels that accidentally mixed with a chemical compound used during a chemistry experiment at the Sussex County Technical School has been determined to be the cause of a fire at the Sparta school in March, the county prosecutor’s office said today.
Zinc metal powder was being used in an electroplating experiment when it was mixed in a 30-gallon plastic trash container with wet paper towels used by students during the cleanup of the experiment, said First Assistant Prosecutor Gregory Mueller.
The mishap occurred despite a warning on the jar containing the zinc metal powder that says there is a danger of spontaneous combustion if the chemical becomes damp and comes in contact with air, he said.
No charges have been filed in connection with the blaze.
The fire broke out in a science lab on the second floor of the school at about 8:30 p.m. on March 14 when a fire alarm was activated by smoke alarms, police said. The Sparta school was closed from March 15 to March 26, postponing graduation until June 21.

A fire that ignited accidentally as a chemist was testing diesel fuel did an estimated $75,000 damage early Monday afternoon in a laboratory on BNSF Railway property, authorities said. No one was hurt.

Shift Commander Mike Thompson, of the Topeka Fire Department, said firefighters were called at 12:21 p.m. to the scene, which Investigator Michael Martin identified as being in a ventilation hood within the BNSF Rail Yard Chemical Testing Lab at 100 N.E. Jefferson Trafficway, Building 8.

Thompson said a chemist had been testing fuel when the hood that pulled the exhaust out of the building failed, igniting the blaze. Smoke damage was reported throughout the building, he said.

Martin said fire suppression crews arrived to find heavy black smoke coming from the building’s roof vents.

“Fire crews initiated an interior attack of the fire and quickly extinguished the blaze,” he said. “A primary and secondary search of the lab revealed the occupants had self-evacuated prior to the arrival of the Topeka Fire Department.”

Martin said investigation revealed the fire originated in a fuel testing containment area.

“The fire was determined to be accidental in nature, and associated with the failure of the testing area ventilation system,” he said.

Martin said no hazardous or volatile chemicals posed any risk to the public as a result of the blaze.

The Manhattan Fire Department responded Wednesday at approximately 11 a.m. to reports of a small lab fire in Ward Hall at Kansas State University.
Officials said a chemical caught fire in one of the building's labs, but that lab workers had extinguished it before firefighters arrived. At press time, officials said they were unsure how the fire started. 

CALGARY — The city fire department was called Wednesday to clean up a toxic spill near the airport that spread into the storm sewer system.

The Hazardous Materials Response Team were dispatched about 5 p.m. to a lab at the 4400 block of 14th Street N.E.

Crews were told up to 53 litres of toluene had spilled and some of the liquid may have entered the storm sewer system.

Investigators were able to soak up much of the product with absorbent material, but they did find some in the sewer system.

The area was cordoned off due to the chemical’s flammability. A contract company was called to vacuum the liquid from the sewer.

Every day, 12 workers die on the job across America. As the nation's secretary of labor, I am surrounded by numbers about jobs, the labor market and about the economy more broadly. But the number 12 stays with me. It is a haunting reminder of the hard-working Americans we lose every day, often in the prime of their life, filled with the energy that we need to build a better world.

Sheri Sangji was one of these Americans, so full of promise. She was a 23-year-old research assistant in a lab at the University of California at Los Angeles, looking forward to a career that would allow her to pursue her interests in chemistry, law and the rights of women and immigrants. One day, while performing an experiment with highly reactive chemicals, a flash fire ignited her clothes and skin, causing fatal burns. Sheri had not been properly trained in the handling of the chemical that set off the blaze. I later met her family, a loving and tight-knit group of people. The weight of their loss was nearly unbearable. I think about them every day.

To remember Sheri Sangji and all others who die on the job across our country, we observe Workers Memorial Day every April 28. Today, we remember families who have lost a loved one because of workplace injuries, and we pledge to continue fighting tirelessly to make sure that no worker trades a life for a livelihood.

Charlottesville Fire and Hazmat crews responded to the Chemistry Building at the University of Virginia early Sunday evening to investigate Nitrogen tanks.

Fire officials say the Nitrogen tanks started to vent, which caused the valves to freeze. But they say there was never a leak and the tanks were just releasing air as they normally do.

U.Va police evacuated the build as a precaution. Students were allowed back in the building after the all-clear was given shortly after 6pm. There were no reported injuries.

MARIETTA, Ga. — Several people were treated outside a Marietta medical school on Friday morning.

Hazat crews swarmed the Everest Institute after reports of people being exposed to Methacrylate Momoner, a surgical super glue. A building at the school was evacuated around lunchtime.

“This type of vial was broken in the classroom, and they disposed of it outside in the Dumpster. This is a surgical type of bonding that they use when they do surgery,” Cobb County Fire Department spokeswoman Denell Boyd said.

Channel 2’s Ross Cavitt was at the scene as patients were being decontaminated. Those  who came into "sniffing range" of the chemical suffered symptoms including, nausea, vomiting and eye and ear irritation, officials said. Boyd said four of 13 patients had been decontaminated. At least 7 people were transported to Kennestone Hospital for non-life-threatening conditions.

WACO (April 18, 2012)—Two coeds who were working with chemicals including a mixture of ethanol and food dye passed out Wednesday afternoon in a Baylor University chemistry lab, but it’s not clear why.

Initial reports indicated that the two students might have been overcome by fumes, but a university spokeswoman said Wednesday evening there was no evidence of any chemical spill or of any dangerous, toxic or hazardous gasses or fumes in the lab.

The two coeds both regained consciousness and walked away from the room as the students were evacuated from the lab, the university said.

The instructor followed established procedures, opening up a vent hood and shutting off natural gas before leaving the lab, the university said.

No other classrooms were evacuated.

AHMEDABAD: Wastes stored in an open area inside Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) campus sparked off fire on Wednesday afternoon. However, no casualty or injury was reported in the incident.

The laboratory wastes of the high security establishment under the Department of Space includes various types of chemicals including inflammable chemicals, chemical containers, boxes and other substances. As a fire suddenly broke out around 12pm, the officials of the laboratory immediately alerted the fire department.

It took the fire tenders more than an hour to douse the fire and bring the situation under control at PRL. "We had a fire fighter vehicle and two water tankers at the place. We had to empty the water from both the tankers in controlling the fire," said additional chief fire officer Rajesh Bhatt.

As the fire officials were busy tackling the situation, staffs and officials of PRL gathered into a crowd to watch the situation. "The wastes have been lying there since a long time and should have been disposed of earlier," said one of the officials who did not wish to disclose his identity.

"We are unable to ascertain the cause of the fire as of now. There was no electrical wiring around the place which eliminated the possibility of short-circuit being the cause of fire. We noticed lots of scraps, wooden furniture and containers at the place," said Bhatt.

ITTSFIELD -- A Berkshire Med ical Center laboratory was evacuated for several hours Wed nesday afternoon following a chemical spill.

A hazardous materials team from the Pittsfield Fire Department responded to the hospital after a lab worker accidentally dropped a container that held the chemical formalin, which is used to preserve laboratory specimens, according to BMC spokesman Michael Leary.

"Due to the caustic nature of the material, it may cause severe eye irritation, skin irritation and it's harmful if swallowed," said Deputy Fire Chief Bruce Kilmer. "So we knew we had a definite hazmat incident, and that we were going to have to make an entry into the lab to clean it up and make air levels safe."

No injuries were reported, but the two BMC employees who were closest to the spill of less than half a gallon of formalin were taken to the hospital's occupational health center as a precaution.

Formalin, a formaldehyde solution, is considered a skin, eye and upper respiratory irritant and a probable human carcinogen after prolonged exposure.

People are back to work at Marque Dental Lab after Hazmat crews spent hours cleaning up an accidental acid spill. The good news is the chemical in the South Fargo spill wasn't as dangerous as they first thought.

The Fargo Fire Department says around 9 this morning at this dental lab, about a half-gallon of hydrochloric acid was spilled all over the floor.

Matt Nelson – Fargo Fire Department: "If you get it into your lungs or onto your skin it can cause a chemical burn or severe respiratory damage depending on the concentrations."

When the Fargo Fire Department arrived at Marque Dental Laboratory, just off of 13th Avenue South, and 23rd Street, they thought the spill could be hydrofluoric acid, forcing firefighters to wear full protection hazmat suits.

It turns out it was the more commonly known hydrochloric acid. Right after the spill workers quickly doused it with baking soda, and called 9-1-1 quickly after fumes erupted.

General Motors Co. officials say damage could hit $5 million following an explosion last week in a battery-testing lab at its Tech Center in Warren, according to a police report obtained by The Detroit News. The blast injured an employee who remained in the hospital Tuesday.

GM Facility Manager Mo Abraham, and Krishon Davis, who works in GM fire prevention, told Warren police that damage "could reach the $5 million mark."

A separate Warren Fire Department report from last Wednesday's explosion estimated $3 million in damage, with property losses at $1 million and contents at $2 million. Warren Fire Commissioner Skip McAdams said Tuesday he estimates the loss is closer to $3 million than $5 million. The figure could change when a full fire investigation report is completed.

GM said last week the explosion was created by gases that vented from an experimental battery pack inside an enclosed room in its battery lab in the Alternative Energy Center building. GM likened the incident to a natural gas explosion, as gases from a battery gathered in the room during extreme testing and ignited.

GM would not comment directly Tuesday on damage estimates cited in the reports.

David Rittenhouse Laboratory was evacuated around 12:45 p.m. Sunday due to reports of a small methane and hydrogen spill in the basement.

About 13 firetrucks from the Philadelphia Fire Department including a HAZMAT team arrived on scene. The team investigated and found no detectable leak, according to Division of Public Safety spokesperson Stef Karp. There were no injuries.

The incident was due to a malfunction in the building’s flammable gas alarm. As a precaution, the room’s gas bottles were shut down, Karp wrote in an email.

Nursing junior Meghan O’Neill was working in the multimedia center in the basement of the building when she was forced to evacuate. She said she didn’t hear an alarm in the building, but firefighters came in and told her to evacuate.

The trucks left at about 1:10 p.m., and Penn Police deemed it safe for people to return to the building.

General Motors Co. was quick to fend off new fears about electric cars Wednesday, after the company said an explosion was caused by gases venting from an experimental battery pack inside a battery lab at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren. The explosion led to the hospitalization of one employee.

The 8:45 a.m. incident inside a small room at the lab was likened by GM to a natural gas explosion, as gases from a battery gathered in the room during extreme testing and ignited. GM said the battery pack remained intact.

One worker who was injured was being kept for observation overnight at an area hospital, said GM spokesman Alan Adler. He declined to release the extent of the man's injuries, nor what he did in the lab.

Four other people were evaluated by medical personnel after the explosion blew out windows and damaged at least part of the global battery lab inside the Alternative Energy Center.

The Detroit automaker, just a few hours after the incident, was quick to point out that the battery being tested was unrelated to the Chevrolet Volt or any other production vehicle.

University laboratories in the United States have suffered nearly 120 explosions, fires, and chemical releases in the past decade, according to a federal tally. But until late last year, the number of criminal charges filed over lapses in laboratory safety was zero.

Frustrated safety experts see a connection between those two statistics. Universities and their researchers don't take lab safety seriously, the safety experts say, and nobody has really ever forced them

General Motors employee who was seriously injured in a battery lab explosion Wednesday is expected to stay in the hospital for another day, a spokesman said this morning.

The unidentified man was taken to a St. John Hospital and Medical Center in Detroit after chemical gases ignited during battery tests Wednesday morning at the GM Technical Center in Warren.

GM spokesman Alan Adler confirmed that the injured man would stay at the hospital today but did not have any more details.

The battery lab sustained “significant” structural damage and equipment was also damaged in the blast, a fire department official said.

GM said the Alternative Energy Center, where the explosion occurred, would be open today – except for the battery lab and nearby offices.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the explosion involved batteries manufactured by A123 Systems for the forthcoming electric version of the Chevrolet Spark.

GM declined to confirm the source of the battery that was involved in the incident.

A123 has come under scrutiny after reporting manufacturing defects in batteries delivered to electric vehicle start-up Fisker Automotive.

But GM has said researchers put batteries through rigorous stress tests – and analysts said accidents weren’t altogether uncommon in the early days of a new technology.

16-year-old boy was taken to Straub Clinic and Hospital just before noon today following a minor explosion in a Mililani High School chemistry classroom.

A teacher was conducting an experiment with methanal when a chemical flash explosion happened in the boy's face, an Emergency Medical Service spokesman said. Paramedics took the boy to the hospital in serious condition. The incident occurred at 11:35 a.m.

The toxic chemical that authorities say a Boston University doctoral student may have ingested when she apparently committed suicide at her South End flat is cheap and available with just a few clicks of a mouse, according to a toxicologist who says sodium azide is in the “same class” as the cyanide suicide concoctions that have sparked similar haz-mat responses in recent years.

“It’s easy to obtain,” said Roger W. Giese, a professor of chemistry and biomedical science at Northeastern University. The chemical is used as a preservative in laboratories but could also be purchased online, he said. “It’s inexpensive, it’s water soluble. It’s salt, like sodium chloride. ... And it doesn’t take very much” to be lethal.

BU officials said they’re probing whether the 25-year-old woman, a third-year student in the medical school’s pharmacology program, had ingested a chemical from one of their laboratories. The woman on Monday night was taken to Boston Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead. Police said they found what appeared to be a suicide note and a relative told them she suffered from depression.

KALAMAZOO  (WKZO) -- A judge has dismissed two charges against a Texas Township man who used his residential property on O Ave. to store thousands of containers of lab wastes in 500 steel drums. The Judge felt the charges, releasing a hazardous chemical, were inappropriate.

Some of the waste was toxic, some of it was caustic and some of it was radioactive.  The Judge ruled that no case was made that the neighbors were in any danger because of the chemicals.

A fire believed to be sparked by a chemical reaction exposed the situation to authorities in 2008.

It’s not known if prosecutors will file new charges, but it’s a possibility.   

The EPA and DEQ thought the situation was dangerous enough in 2008 to initiate an emergency remedial cleanup and extensive testing of the groundwater.

It also sparked a great deal of concern from neighbors, fearful that their water wells might be contaminated by the wastes.  

A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge Wednesday granted a third — and final — defense request to delay the arraignment of a UCLA chemistry professor and the UC Board of Regents on felony charges stemming from a 2008 lab fire that killed a staff research assistant.

Judge Shelly Torrealba ordered professor Patrick Harran and lawyers for the regents back into court June 7, effectively setting a deadline for them to reach a plea agreement with prosecutors on charges in the death of Sheharbano “Sheri” Sangji.

CINCINNATI - A University of Cincinnati student is in the hospital Wednesday morning after a toxic chemical explosion on campus overnight.

Police say a female student was working with a toxic chemical alone at the engineering building located at 2901 Woodside Place around 1 a.m. when a reaction caused an explosion. The student was working on a process known as aluminum etching when the reaction caused an explosion and sprayed very dangerous chemicals all over the lab and on the student.

Officials say the student wore protective gear at the time of the explosion, but the gear was still covered in the chemical. When she tried to take the protective wear off, some of chemical got on her arms and caused them to burn.

Emergency crews transported the student to the hospital where she was treated, but is being kept for observation because the chemical is slow reacting.

Warren— General Motors Co. said a Wednesday incident at a battery lab in the General Motors Technical Center that seriously injured one person was unrelated to the Chevrolet Volt or any other production vehicle, but was related to "extreme testing on a prototype battery."

Four others were evaluated after reports of a lithium battery exploding at a battery research lab at the GM Tech Center.

"We are aware of an incident this morning about 8:45 a.m. in one of the laboratories at the Alternative Energy Center at the General Motors Technical Center in Warren, Mich.," GM said in a release. "Fire and emergency authorities were called to the scene. The building was evacuated. All employees have been accounted for. We are aware of five employees being evaluated on scene by medical personal and only one employee is being further treated.

Authorities are searching for two men who fled a suburban East Hemet home Wednesday afternoon during an inferno caused by a marijuana lab explosion.
Riverside County sheriff’s investigators determined burning marijuana chemicals set the blaze that destroyed a home at the corner of Acacia Avenue and Lake Street, in the unincorporated neighborhood of Little Lake.
The Sheriff’s Department Special Investigations Bureau issued a statement Thursday that said two men were seen fleeing after several explosions were heard just before 3:30 p.m. Wednesday.
Detectives believe the men were using a flammable substance to extract concentrated cannabis from marijuana plants in the garage. Evidence suggests a spark ignited the fumes, which caused an explosion and flames that consumed most of the home, according to the statement.
The fire also caused ammunition in the home to discharge and fire at the same time firefighters arrived.

MANHATTAN, KS (KCTV) -
Three student employees were taken to the hospital after an acid vapor incident at Kansas State's Weber Hall on Monday.

Firefighters and K-State's public safety team cleaned up an acid vapor in Weber Hall around 8:30 a.m. Monday.

University officials said an acid vapor was created after a student worker improperly mixed together two cleaning chemicals in the meats lab in Weber Hall.

Weber Hall houses the department of animal sciences and industry.

Officials said the mixture caused an acid vapor that irritates the eyes and mucus membrane of the lungs.

The student, along with two other students who walked through the room and another who smelled the mixture in an adjacent room, were all taken to the hospital for examination.

Crews evacuated Weber Hall to ventilate the building, and the building was approved for re-entry around 11:15 a.m.

BEND, Ore. -- Bend Research employees were evacuated and fire crews were called in when a chemical drum with a carbon filter ignited Tuesday afternoon, but workers used a fire extinguisher to contain the blaze, fire officials said.
Firefighters responded to an alarm around 1:40 p.m. at the medical research firm at 63045 Corporate Place (off Empire Avenue), said Deputy Fire Marshal T.J. Johannsen.
Arriving crews found the building had been evacuated and workers were gathered away from the building on an adjoining parking lot, she said.
The fire began in a drum, about 55 gallons in size, located in a small room off the northwest corner of the building, easy to reach from an outside door, Johannsen said.
The filtering system of the drum uses activated carbon to filter various solutions, the fire official said. A highly flammable chemical was being processed by the system when the fire broke out, Johannsen explained.
Because the container malfunctioned, a pocket of concentrated air in the drum was able to reach an ignition source, she said.
The resulting fire was able to heat the drum, causing it to break down, but the blaze was contained in the area of origin, Johannsen said.
Workers used a fire extinguisher to slow the fire’s progress, keeping it contained before firefighters arrived, wearing breathing apparatus as a precaution.
Johannsen said the quick actions of workers who activated emergency plans had the building evacuated in minutes.
“This is a good reminder for everyone to never ignore an alarm,” Johannsen said in a news release. “Always take smoke and the alarms seriously. They may one day save your life.”PrintEmail


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FIRE crews attended a fire at a Netherton laboratory yesterday.

Crews from Tipton, Cradley Heath and Smethwick attended the fire in the first floor lab at Exova UK Ltd in Halesowen Road, shortly before 5.30pm.

The fire had broken out inside the ventilation extraction unit, with 10 per cent of the two-storey building engulfed in flames.

Firefighters wore chemical protection suits and gloves to put out the flames because of the presence of laboratory gases.

Police, West Midlands Ambulance Service and Environmental officers were also in attendance at the premises, which is one of the world’s leading laboratories in the testing of pipeline materials for the oil and gas industry.

Online education is playing an increasing role in the physical classroom. Late Nite Labs is replacing real-life science labs with digital experiments.

Educators and students can access the virtual lab from any computer at any time. If a wrong mixture is made or too much of an ingredient is added, a beaker will explode and the scientist will have to start again -- just like a real lab. The platform combines gaming graphics with education principles.

Late Nite Labs works with over 150 colleges, universities, and high schools. More than 20,000 students use it.

The startup has raised $1.1 million from Harold Levy of Palm Ventures and the former Chancellor of New York Public Schools.

SPARTA -- The Sussex County Technical School Board of Education took several steps at Thursday's meeting to move forward from a science lab fire that closed the school for seven days.

The board unanimously voted to revise the school calendar to tack these seven days on to the end of the school year rather than interrupting the spring recess. The last day for students will now be June 21, and the third marking period will be extended to April 18.

"(The fire aftermath) was handled beautifully. Even the decision on what to do with those school days (was done well)," board member Susan Shake said. She said the administration talked to parents and teachers to reach a decision on the school calendar revision.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (Exponent) -

The Purdue fire department responded to a chemical spill that occurred just after 9 p.m. Tuesday night at the Wetherill Hall of Chemistry.

Kevin Ply, chief of the Purdue Fire Department, said the chemical was "water-reactive."

"We had a spill in one of the labs," Ply said. "For precautionary purposes we evacuated the fourth floor."

You can read the rest of this story at the Purdue Exponent website .

BOISE -- Authorities say an explosion at Micron Technologies in Boise resulted in minors injuries to seven people and led to the brief evacuation of 200 workers Tuesday morning.
Boise Fire Chief Dennis Doan says the explosion was powerful enough to move a concrete wall.
 
Fire officials say the explosion involved a piece of research and development equipment located two floors below ground.
 
Emergency responders report that no hazardous chemicals were released as a result.
 
Seven people were examined at the scene for minor injuries that included a cut arm, ringing in the ears of two people and several complaints of dust inhalation.

Senior Safety Specialist, Marc White, shows off the new hands-on safety training lab at the Great Lakes Safety Training Center.

The lab features different simulations people in all different types of industries can use.

"They can put the harnesses on or do the confined space and actually use the equipment and it will emphasize what they learned in the classroom," says White.

"We typically work with clients in the chemical industry, heavy manufacturing, general construction, as well as commercial type industries," says Executive Director, Jim Cook.

The Safety Training Center in Midland has always offered classroom courses, as well as a computer lab for workers in different trades.

When bad things happen in an academic laboratory, what should happen to people who bear responsibility for those bad things — even if they didn’t mean for them to happen?

This is the broad question I’ve been thinking about in connection with the prosecution of chemistry professor Patrick Harran and UCLA in connection with the laboratory accident that killed Sheri Sangji. Potentially, Harran could face jail time, and there has been a good bit of discussion (as in these posts at Chemjobber) about whether that’s what he deserves.

I’ll be honest: I find myself uncomfortable weighing Harran’s actions (and inaction) as worthy of jail time or not, let alone assigning the appropriate number of months or years behind bars to punish him for Sheri Sangji’s death. And, other than satisfying our appetite for retribution, I am utterly unsure whether such a penalty in this case would help. I don’t know that it would do much to change the conditions and institutions that ought to be changed in the wake of this accident. (On the matter of changing institutions, read the excellent posts at ChemBark and Chemjobber.)

In 1912, Masten Park High School in Buffalo was totally destroyed by fire in the afternoon. All the pupils responded to the fire drill signal sounded by Principal Frank S. Fosdick immediately after the discovery of the fire and escaped. The boys and girls marched out of the building without a trace of confusion. As the last line of children was leaving, falling bricks which came down from the roof hit several of the pupils and the mother of Janitor Funk. They were taken to the General Hospital. The fire was caused by an explosion of chemicals in a laboratory on the fourth floor. Prin. Fosdick displayed great heroism as he made three trips into the burning building to rescue pupils he thought still inside. On his third trip out of the burning building he was stuck by a falling timber and hurt although it was said his condition was not serious.

Following three safety incidents -- including explosions in October 2011 and January 2012 that occurred in the same laboratory -- the chemistry department at the University of Florida is placing new emphasis on safety, reports the Alligator, an independent, student-run newspaper affiliated with the university.

"We're trying to change the culture so people will take safety as seriously here as they do in an industrial lab.  Where we've fallen down is really stressing the importance that safety is everybody's responsibility, all day, every day," says department chair Daniel Talham, quoted in the article.

Among the steps taken is organizing a committee including people representing the departments of chemistry and chemical engineering and the office of environmental health and safety to review potentially hazardous experiments.

Three chemical incidents have called fire and police department officials to Sisler Hall in this school year, and the chemistry department is reacting.

The first two events — both explosions, one on Oct. 11 and one on Jan. 11 — happened in synthesis labs. The third, which happened March 15, involved a student who felt faint, according to a University Police report.

In response, the department and UF’s Environmental Health & Safety division of Business Affairs have partnered to emphasize the significance of staying safe. Their focus is training students to always think about safety, said Daniel Talham, chair of the chemistry department.

“We’re trying to change the culture so people take safety as seriously here as they do in an industrial lab,” he said. “Where we’ve fallen down is really stressing the importance that safety is everybody’s responsibility, all day, every day.”

After the October explosion, EHS representatives came to synthesis labs and ran special review sessions about handling hazardous materials and using protective equipment.

The students were concerned and cooperative, said EHS Director Bill Properzio.

The three-story Faculty of Sciences building of the University of Lagos went up in flames in the early hours of Tuesday morning, destroying the Mathematics and Physics departments on the second and third floors, media reports confirmed.

No lives were lost in the fire incident, which started at about 6 a.m., but academic materials, furnishings and personal belongings were lost in the fire.

Fire fighters from UNILAG’s Fire Service, the Federal Fire Service, Lagos State Fire Service and the Union Bank of Nigeria Fire and Rescue Unit combated the fire and put it out at about 9:55 a.m.

Students and lecturers were seen at the fire site desperately trying to salvage their documents and belongings from being destroyed by the fire.

At 11:04 a.m. today, University of Colorado students accidentally spilled a chemical in the Engineering Center’s Chemical Wing. A student dropped a 100-milliliter glass bottle containing acryloyl chloride, a chemical substance that acts like hydrochloric acid when exposed to the air. The students suffered from irritations to their eyes and immediately activated a fire alarm.

At 11:34 a.m., emergency responders decided to evacuate the Engineering Center. Agencies that responded to the scene were: the University of Colorado Police Department, CU Environmental Health & Safety Department, Boulder Police, Boulder Fire, American Medical Response and the Boulder County Hazardous Materials Team.

The Hazardous Materials Team entered the building around 2:30 p.m. and deemed there was no public health threat, except for inside the Chemical Wing. The building was reopened around 3 p.m. CU Environmental Health & Safety officials cleaned up the spill and reopened the Chemical Wing around 3:45 p.m.

The four students were evaluated by medical staff at the scene and determined to be OK. One female CU student, who was in the Engineering Center but not part of the original incident, reported she had a headache. She was taken to Boulder Community Hospital.

Throughout the incident, the CU Police Department worked with students and instructors with critical experiments inside to safely access the Engineering Center.

REEDSBURG — A chemical fire in a Reedsburg Area High School chemistry class injured three students and a teacher Monday.
The teacher and two of the students were transported to Reedsburg Area Medical Center with minor injuries, Reedsburg Ambulance Director Josh Kowalke said.
One of the students and the teacher then were taken to the University of Wisconsin Burn Center for further treatment.
Two of the students were back in school Tuesday, Principal Rob Taylor said. The teacher is at home recovering and one student is still in Madison. Officials would not confirm the name of the students or the teacher, but there is only one Chemistry II teacher, Corinne Fish, according to the district’s website.
Taylor said the experiment that caused the fire is one that has been done “literally hundreds of times” at the school over the years.
“It’s an experiment with salt and methanol that makes different-colored flames,” Taylor said. “For some reason, this time it caused a bigger flash than usual.”
Taylor said a student’s sweater caught fire, as did the teacher’s lab coat. Several students in the class called 911 while others contacted the front office. The school’s emergency response team, including associate principal Matt Terry and assistant principal Gary Syftestad, responded immediately.
“The team performed exactly like they should have,” Taylor said. “The girl dropped and rolled and then the teacher unselfishly put out the fire on the young lady while her own arm was still on fire.”
Each science lab is equipped with an emergency shower, fire extinguisher and fire blankets, all of which were used to help the teacher and students.

SPARTA -- Sussex County Technical School will remain closed through Thursday, as the school continues to clean up from a fire that started last Wednesday night in a science lab.

The school is tentatively scheduled to reopen on Friday.

The fire, which was caused by a chemical reaction in a 30-gallon garbage can, has forced the district to close for at least six days and will lead to the relocation of eight classrooms and several lockers for the remainder of the school year, according to Interim Superintendent Anthony Macerino.

"Clean-up has commenced and is proceeding well," Macerino said on Monday. "As with any fire or emergency facility situation, air quality tests have been completed."

Investigations are continuing into Friday night's chemical scare that led to the Emergency Department at the Calvary Mater Hospital being evacuated and decontaminated.

A 32-year-old Lambton man drank a quantity of the substance sodium azide and was taken by ambulance from Newcastle University to the Mater, where he later died.

Ambulance Officers union spokesman Peter Rumball says two paramedics were among several workers who had to be decontaminated.

"The Hazmat decontaminated them and they were allowed to go home," he said.

"The have since recovered but it just highlights the jobs of ambulance officers across the State, simply going to respond to someone that's ill they could become a victim themselves."

Mr Rumball says the chemical, which is extremely toxic, is used in bio-medical experiments and as an insecticide.

"It can be quite dangerous," he said.

"It can be lethal if it's ingested or absorbed.

"That's why the full decontamination process was put in place at the Mater Hospital to deal with that, to protect not only the patient but members of the nursing staff, doctors and the ambulance officers."

On Saturday, take the time to lock up the cyanide and stash your arsenic somewhere safe, because next week is National Poison Prevention Week.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that, despite federally required child-proof packaging on most medicines, emergency rooms receive around 60,000 visits each year from children who sampled from the medicine cabinet. Poisoning is also one of the leading injury-related causes of death in the U.S., with 90 percent of deaths involving drugs, prescription or otherwise, according to the CDC.

It's not just parents that should keep proper poison control in mind. As workplaces go, laboratories are not nearly as risky as forests, but accidental poisoning has claimed the lives of experienced researchers as well as some of the most acclaimed figures in science.

Perhaps the most famous cautionary tale in science is that of Marie Curie, whose work on radioactivity earned her two Nobel Prizes in different scientific fields - chemistry and physics - a feat that has yet to be matched since.

The emergency department at Newcastle's Mater Hospital had to be evacuated overnight after a man who had ingested a dangerous chemical was brought in.
Police say the 32 year old man had swallowed the chemical in the science laboratories at Newcastle University.
Concerns were raised about the volatility of the chemical and the Fire Brigade's Hazmat unit was called in.
Police Inspector Michael Gorman says a number of people who were in contact with the patient had to be decontaminated.
"Police and Hazmat and fire brigade attended the emergency department at the Mater Hospital," he said.
"They took steps to isolate the patient, close the emergency department to any more incoming patients and a partial evacuation of the emergency department as carried out until such time as Hazmat was satisfied that the area was safe.
The emergency department was re-opened just after 2 am (AEST) this morning.
Inspector Gorman says the area was decontaminated before being re-opened.
"The toxicologist was brought in both to treat the male patient but also to liaise with the HAZMAT staff in terms of the air quality and any possible contamination to any persons who had come into contact with the male during the course of the evening," he said.
"After those discussions the all clear was given, the area was decontaminated and the emergency department re-opened at approximately 2am."
The 32 year old man died early this morning.

During seventh period on Friday, March 16, only a few minutes before school was over, the fire alarm was triggered by a student in Dr. Leslie Hart’s chemistry class. The class was performing a series of chemical reaction labs, and the student ignited too much magnesium in a bunsen burner. “I saw it light out of the corner of my eye, and turned around to see a blazing light [coming from one of the lab stations],” said sophomore Max McQuaid.

Moments after igniting the magnesium, Dr. Hart had the student put it out. “A couple seconds after, the fire alarm started going off.” said sophomore Paul Fuchs. Nothing was damaged and no one was hurt, and the alarm was shut off soon after that.

A former graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin is enmeshed in a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) inquiry after he was stopped for a traffic offence and found to have lab chemicals and equipment in his car.

Karl Jasheway was pulled over by Travis County police near Austin in December 2011 and charged with driving while intoxicated. The FBI's interest in Jasheway only emerged on 9 March as a result of a public-information request filed by Austin-based biosafety advocate Ed Hammond.

At the time of the incident, Jasheway was studying for a PhD in the laboratory of biologist Jon Robertus, known for his pioneering work on the structure of transfer RNA. Jasheway’s research was part of the lab's federally funded work to develop an antidote for ricin, a highly toxic protein found in the castor oil plant Ricinus communis and a potential bioterror agent. Jasheway's work involved using a non-toxic component of the protein called the ricin A chain.

SPARTA — Sussex County Technical School was closed Thursday and will remain closed today after a Wednesday night fire that severely damaged a science classroom, police said.

The township Police Communications Center received a fire alarm from the high school at 8:35 p.m., according to a news release from the police department, which said the alarm was activated by smoke detectors.

Heavy smoke
A janitor reported a heavy smoke condition on the second floor of the building as Sparta firefighters arrived at 8:40 p.m. and entered the building.

On the second floor, a biology, chemistry, environmental lab was filled with thick smoke and flames coming from the base of one of the work tables, police said.

The fire quickly was extinguished and the classroom was ventilated though it sustained heavy fire, smoke and water damage. An adjoining classroom also sustained heavy smoke and water damage, police said.

There were no injuries reported.

The cause of the fire was determined to be “nonsuspicious” after an investigation was conducted by the State Police Arson Unit, Sussex County Prosecutor’s Office, Sparta Detective Terrence Mulligan and Sussex County Fire Marshal Michael Alvarez.

Source of fire
The fire appears to have started in a plastic garbage can after a chemical reaction occurred inside the container, police said.

The specific types of chemicals involved in the fire still are being determined, but it appeared that some accidentally were discarded in the can. Those chemicals have the potential to be volatile when mixed.

A student’s experiment caused fumes from hazardous chemicals to leak into the air in Sisler Hall on Thursday night.
The student, who did not want to identify himself, was conducting an experiment alone on the third floor of the building when fumes started to rise from a 6-inch flask, said Gainesville Fire Rescue Lt. Gary Law.
Although GFR called the incident a chemical spill, only fumes leaked from the beaker. Sisler Hall was kept open while GFR inspected the lab where the incident happened.
The student told firefighters he was not hurt, but GFR insisted he go to the hospital as a precautionary measure for fear of inhalation hazards, said GFR Lt. Steve Mueller.
The student was working with a 100 mL mixture of carbon tetrachloride, hexane, triphenylphosphine and water.
The experiment was conducted on a countertop under a hood, which prevented the fumes from being released into surrounding air.
Law said if it had not been for the hood, the situation could have been a lot worse.
This was at least the third incident involving hazardous chemical reactions in Sisler Hall throughout the past year. The first occurred Oct. 11 when a student’s vial exploded as he transferred it to a scale. The second was on Jan. 11 when a student’s chemical mixture exploded under a protective hood.
GFR would not comment as to why chemical-related accidents keep happening in Sisler Hall.
“But it’s something that should be asked,” Mueller said.

BEND, Ore. -- A federal-state hazardous material team was wrapping up identification, packaging and clean-up work Thursday at a southeast Bend recycling business that unknowingly bought hundreds of unlabeled chemicals someone improperly left stored at a nearby mini-storage business, officials said.
Pakit Liquidators at 903 SE Armour St. contacted authorities when the chemicals, apparently from an old research lab of some sort, were found among items the firm bought when Clark’s Storage, a Ninth Street mini-storage business, sold off the items in two storage units whose leases expired due to unpaid rent, said Brian Allen, a hazardous waste compliance inspector with the state Department of Environment Quality in Bend.
"They brought the equipment, books, everything over to their site," Allen said. The Pakit workers began going through the materials on Sunday, March 4 and “noticed they had acquired some chemicals,” so they contacted Bend police, who in turn put them in touch with the Oregon Emergency Response System, Allen said.

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. — Los Alamos National Laboratory called out its hazmat and emergency response team Wednesday following a chemical reaction at one of the lab's technical areas.

Lab officials say there was a small chemical reaction in a bottle that contained a sample of liquid that had been drawn from a 60-year-old cylinder. The material flared briefly when exposed to air.

The lab says no one was injured or exposed to any hazardous chemicals.

As a precaution, Los Alamos police temporarily closed the area. One section of road closest to the technical area remained closed Wednesday afternoon.

A lab subcontractor was sampling the old cylinders in a metal enclosure when the incident happened just before noon.

The cylinders were excavated last year from a World War II-era landfill on lab property so that they could be characterized and properly disposed of.

AN ARMY BOMB disposal team was deployed to the Malahide Road at Dublin 17 earlier today after an unstable chemical was discovered at a laboratory.
The team arrived on the scene at Teagasc on the Malahide Road at about 4pm. The unstable chemical, called Picric Acid, had been found during a routine audit of the lab.
It was removed to waste ground and a controlled explosion was carried out to make the substance safe.

Holes in the floor of James Weir large enough for people to fall through and flames stretching a full 30 metres along each side of the building were just a few of the lasting sights of last month's blaze at Strathclyde University.

The campus blaze tore through the six-storey structure on Montrose Street for almost five hours before being extinguished with the building now, only four weeks on, back to the slimmest semblance of normality.

In an exclusive interview with The Journal a week on from the fire, Strathclyde Fire and Rescue Deputy Assistant Chief Officer, Jim Doyle, who was in command of the incident, revealed the situation threatened to spiral out of control as crisis levels were raised and more firefighters called in to keep a handle on the blaze.

Plea negotiations will continue in an unprecedented criminal case stemming from a 2008 lab fire that killed a UCLA staff research assistant and resulted in felony charges against a chemistry professor and the UC Board of Regents.

On Wednesday, a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge postponed until April 11 the arraignment of professor Patrick Harran and the regents. The defendants were charged in December with three counts each of willfully violating occupational health and safety standards, resulting in the death of Sheharbano "Sheri" Sangji.

KETTERING, Ohio — A chemical spill that occurred during research at the National Composite Center on Tuesday night led to an alcohol-based fire in one of the laboratories on the center’s campus.
Fire crews were dispatched at about 6:30 p.m. to the center in the Kettering Business Park, 2000 Composite Drive, on a report of a fire.
Three employees were running an experiment when the spill occurred, said Tom Butts, shift commander, Kettering Fire Department.
“They were doing research unknown to us,” Butts said, and an estimated 20 gallons of isopropanol (“high based 100 percent rubbing alcohol”) that spilled sought out an electric ignition source and caught fire.
The alcohol was “consumed in the fire,” Butts said. The building's suppression system put out the fire.

MARSHFIELD — A State Police bomb squad and a hazardous-materials response team on Monday removed explosive chemicals from two locations in town.

Chemicals were taken from the basement of a Church Street home and then from the high school’s chemistry lab.

The Marshfield Fire Department said all of the dangerous chemicals found at both locations were removed and disposed of. No injuries were reported.

As of Monday night, classes at the high school, at 167 Forest St., had not been suspended or canceled as a result of the chemical removal.

The chemical removed from the high school was potassium, a substance commonly used in fireworks and pyrotechnics, said John Hall, chairman of Marshfield’s board of selectmen. By 7:30 p.m., the potassium was transported to the town landfill off Clay Pit Road, where it was disposed of.

Earlier in the day, picric acid, an explosive agent once used by military forces, was removed from a Church Street home, Marshfield Fire Chief Kevin Robinson said.

Robinson said the chemical operation at the high school occurred Monday afternoon only because the hazardous-materials team was already in town for the Church Street incident.

ANDERSON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects to finish cleaning the site of a crude chemistry lab in Anderson by the end of the month.

Work on cleaning up the property, on Frontage Road near Interstate 85 and Hartwell Lake, has been going on since June, after a federal environmental official working in Anderson noticed it as he drove down the highway.

So far, the cleanup of the old Flex-A-Form site has included the discovery and testing of 946 containers of chemicals, most either mislabeled or not labeled at all.

It has included work to remove 10,000 tons of soil, some laced with arsenic and cadmium, a toxic metal.

It has included the demolition of three leaky warehouses where a man in his 70s mixed and stockpiled chemicals, many dating to the 1990s.

A Menlo Park research and development company is facing nearly $56,000 in penalties for workplace safety violations following a September explosion that left one scientist dead and another with injuries.
Cal/OSHA on Thursday released the results of its investigation into the fatal blast at Membrane Technology & Research on Willow Road.
At 3:40 p.m. on Sept. 2, Adrian Martin, 55, was mixing butane, helium, nitrogen and methane in a propane cylinder with a maximum allowable working pressure of 300 psi, according to an investigation summary. The concentration of the gases, however, boosted pressure to between 700 and 800 psi.
The 15-inch-diameter, nearly 4-foot-tall cylinder exploded as Martin added more methane in an effort to achieve a 90 percent concentration of the gas, the report said. Had the San Jose resident succeeded, the pressure in the cylinder would have reached at least 1,200 psi.
Investigators also determined that the cylinder wasn't equipped with a proper pressure relief valve. The device was set to activate above 3,360 psi, more than 10 times the maximum allowable working pressure of the cylinder.

An early morning fire at Welch Hall on the University of Texas campus caused an estimated $15,000 in damage, school officials said this afternoon.
Austin fire and other emergency officials responded to the incident around 4 a.m. at the building that houses the university’s chemistry and biology departments.
The fire occurred in a refrigerator in a chemistry and biology lab on the fourth floor of Welch Hall, university officials said. The fire set off an alarm and sprinkler system, which extinguished the fire.
“The details of the cause are still under investigation,” the university said in a statement.
The damage was water-related, officials said.
“The University of Texas at Austin is committed to the highest standards for lab safety,” Dennis Nolan, assistant director for biological and lab safety, said in a statement. “The department of Environmental Health and Safety works closely with the 1,400 research and teaching labs on campus. In the wake of national laboratory incidents at UCLA and Texas Tech, the university has made a number of improvements to its laboratory safety program over the last two years.”
The morning incident was a reminder of past emergency calls that plagued the building in the 1990s.
In the last 10 years, however, emergency responders have seen a dramatic improvement with fewer such incidents at Welch Hall, said Battalion Chief Palmer Buck. Buck said the department has not responded to a hazardous call to the building in more than two years.
In 2009, the Austin fire department responded to two similar hazardous-material incidents, he said.
Welch Hall saw a $30 million renovation in the late 1990s that included the installment of new fire alarm and sprinkler systems after a six-alarm fire gutted a lab and damaged two others.
A state auditor’s report had been critical of the school’s progress in enforcing lab safety prior to the fire. Since that time, city officials have said improvements at Welch Hall have been substantial.

A chemical storage refrigerator may have caused a fire on the fourth floor of Welch Hall’s west wing Thursday morning, officials said.

The fire started at about 4 a.m. and caused minimal damage. The UT Police Department and Austin Fire Department arrived at the scene where the investigators ruled the cause of the fire to be undetermined at the time, said Garland Waldrop, UT fire marshal. Fire officials are still investigating the exact source of the fire.

“There was a minimal amount of fire damage because the fire sprinklers in the lab contained the flames in the one room, but we had to remove the water from the sprinklers that ran down from the fourth floor to the basement,” Waldrop said.

The fourth floor of the west wing was closed off to students Thursday in order to repair the water damage, but will be accessible again on Friday. False alarm sirens alerted those in and around the building throughout the day, but did not signal danger.

Dennis Nolan, assistant director of biological and lab safety, said investigators do not know if it was the refrigerator that caused the fire or the chemicals inside it.

“From what I can tell, it doesn’t look like the refrigerator [alone] caused the fire, but it is still not conclusive,” Nolan said. “All labs in the building were notified of what the best practices are in order to prevent this from happening again.”  

A chemical fire in the science wing of Hatzic Secondary has closed the Mission school until Wednesday.

The fire department responded to an alarm on Sunday at 9: 30 p.m. that indicated the water sprinklers were activated in the west zone of the school, said Mission Fire Rescue Chief Ian Fitzpatrick.

Fire Hall No. 1 responded with a full crew of 30 firefighters, who found water on the floor and light smoke in the area. No one was in the school at the time.

The accidental fire was very likely started by a chemical reaction, but fortunately the materials were in a chemical safe in a chemical storage room, said Fitzpatrick.

There was limited damage from the water and smoke, but clean-up crews were checking for any hazardous chemicals or residue before the school is re-opened, which may be Wednesday, he said.

"The sprinkler was definitely a factor in keeping the fire down. It did its job, the chemical container did its job."