The home chemist has a lot to stay on top of, and making sure that your lab is a source of fun and learning is one of them. From personal safety equipment to air quality, everything is on the shoulders of the lab operator. As your experiments progress, and your chemical expertise grows, more safeguards are called for. Take these five safety tips to heart and science on!
1. Personal safety gear. Should include chemical splash safety goggles, gloves – nitrile, safety, and heat resistant – and a basic white lab coat or apron. You should also have chemically resistant sleeved aprons, and footwear covers or resistant footwear.
2. Lab safety gear. Vent hoods are a must over your work surface, and work surfaces should have chemical resistance. Whether it’s a phenolic countertop or a specialty rubber like silicone or neoprene, or just a plain rubber floor mat, make sure that your work surface is even, level, and clean.
3. Security. This means locking doors and storage, or even a camera setup.
4. Air sampling. Charcoal tubes for air sampling can keep you safe when working with gases, vapors, dusts, and aerosols as part of an air sampling system. The charcoal tubes are inexpensive and work with a sampling pump to make sure that the air is safe to breathe.
5. Fire control.Fire control. You will need a fire extinguisher and you may need more than one, depending on the chemicals and materials you are using. If, for instance you are working with flammable metals, you will need a Class D extinguisher. You might also want to invest in a high temperature fire blanket.
If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. A home chemistry lab needs to be operated with the same safety considerations that would be on display in a school or college science lab. Make sure that kids know that the lab is not a place to play, and also that kids and pets can be locked out. Nobody should be in there without you, and above all they should not be able to access the lab without your knowledge. Keep it safe, and still blow stuff up.