Open Thread: Giving a talk on lab safety for grad students
January 17th, 2010 by excimerGuys and gals, I would like your input on something. I am giving a laboratory safety seminar to first-year organic chemistry graduate students in about a week. While I already have notes from the prof who used to to this seminar, the powers that be decided that it would be best if a senior graduate student did the talk- someone who still works in the lab and knows the dos and don’ts of modern organic synthesis. And I’m a sucker for an audience. You should know this by now.
So my question to you all is this: what would you want to cover in a hour-long talk on lab safety, given that:
- The audience consists only of first-year organic grad students and the majority of them will be doing organic or organometallic synthesis;
- A majority of them already have research experience either as an undergrad or in industry;
- My part of the talk is geared toward working in the lab as opposed to department and school policies and such, which is covered by someone else. In other words, the current talk has a considerable amount of chemistry in it.
While the slides I have for this talk are pretty good, in some ways they are not terribly up-to-date. In the interest of sheer curiosity for your thoughts, I won’t divulge the current content. The floor is yours.
Two things come to mind in my tours of university labs. First, nobody ever pays attention to the MSDS sheets that come with chemicals. Things like what spill kits to use, signs of toxic exposure and the steps to take for them, properties like flask and ignition points, et cetera are in them and ought to be know by everyone using them. Second, common use areas like balance areas, hoods, spectrometers often have no control, just joint use in anarchy. This means they get cluttered and messy, but also anything spilled or giving off any vapor might affect something else in that area – especially in hood. This can be an accident or fire or explosion waiting to happen. There ought to be rules of use and rules about cleanliness and order.
I agree that cleanliness is important, but MSDSes exist solely for the sake of CYA policies and legal obligations- I’ll point you to Derek Lowe’s post on it. Look at the MSDS for OsO4. One of the most insidious toxological properties of OsO4 is that its vapors can cause blindness. Nowhere is this mentioned in the MSDS. Then compare the language of that MSDS to that of sodium hydroxide, a hazardous compound, but not to the level of os-tet. Many sections are repeated almost verbatim. That is not useful. Knowing these sorts of effects go far beyond mere curiosity, they’re really necessary for chemists to gauge risk, and trigger a subconscious mechanism so necessary for vigilant safety protocol. Basically, I think MSDSes are useless for chemists, but there are other, better references for the information chemists need (merck index, prudent practices in the laboratory).
I agree. The CYA statements on some of the MSDS’s, documentation and labeling are like “the boy who cried wolf”. Relatively harmless compounds are given dire warnings, encouraging the untrained to ignore the cautions. How can you explain to students that some compounds really _are_ dangerous if _everything_ is labeled dangerous? And how are they supposed to tell the difference?
I often cite the labels about compounds that are “known to the state of California” to cause cancer, or the even more foolish “For the purposes of the New Jersey right-to-know law: ‘Contents partially unknown’” as examples of bureaucrats gone wild. There needs to be a common-sense standard somewhere.
Keep in mind that, while the first-years may have some research experience, that doesn’t mean they have SYNTHETIC experience! There are people in my incoming class who came in to do organic/organometallic synth from building mass specs or AFMing themselves blind. Those are the people you need to inform most. Just make sure to tell some stories to keep the more experienced contingent awake.
Actually, I think the ones who are most comfortable with synthesis are the ones who need to be re-educated about lab safety. These are the ones who tend to have the most confidence in what they’re doing, and tend to ignore safety precautions the most.
I’d like to put in a plug for ergonomics.
These students are going to be putting in major hours in the lab, and it often doesn’t occur to a new student to arrange or re-arrange their work area to be comfortable.
Was the last person to use the space much taller or shorter?
Are there anti-fatigue mats in the spots where you stand all day? Is there a way/place to set up instruments to avoid lots of reaching or stooping?
I’d go further and say that desk ergonomics are important too, but that step might fall on deaf ears/pollute the rest of the argument.
We all know people with bad backs or repetitive strain injuries. Aggravating those conditions will knock you out of research and decrease quality of life just as surely as burning fingers on a hot plate.
no careless mixing of random chemicals….believe me….one day or another they will bite you in the ass and explode
i would just tell them to ask themselves the following questions before they do aboslutely anything.
1. Why am i doing this?
2. Would i get in trouble if my boss/postdoc/safety people saw me doing this?
3. What is the worst possible thing that can happen if i do this?
4. What would I do if the worst possible thing happened?
I would then include some anecdotes of stupid things grad students have done, and how if they had bothered to use their brains for 1 second this could gave been avoided. (this applies to their chemistry as well as their safety)
the way I was taught was by my postdoc constantly showing up behind me and asking “why are you doing that?”. If I didnt have a sensible answer (which most grad students will rarely have) he would ridicule me. Humiliation is a valuable teaching tool in my opinion.
I would suggest telling horror stories ! They will keep people interested, and scare them as well.
b
I second john’s comment at the start, risk assessing every routine experiment makes you blasé about everything – because it’s an official talk you might not be able to openly acknowledge this, but at least advising them to look up anything they’ve not encountered before IN THE LAB. The aforementioned osmium tetroxide is (at least for me) in a common on-paper recipie, but I’ve never used it and I don’t know it caused blindness.
General risk assessments for things like “all alkylating/acylating agents” are also good, pragmatic things to have – knowing the kinds of excessive risks associated with certain classes of compounds. Something as simple as, “if it’s got fluorine, alkyl halide or peroxide in the name, look it up”
Also, totally agree with party. Risking having my postdoc go “wait, you did what?” is a big motivator to justify and think about my work.
I’ve always wished somebody came in and gave a practical safety course about the dangers (or lack of) or common chemicals around the lab. Buli/tBuLi, Pd/C and Pt/C, NaH/KH, MeI/Me2SO4, DMSO/DMF/HMPA. TMS-diazomethane is a particularly good example of a chemical that never got treated with the respect it deserves.
Lots of people see a prep out of a journal and repeat it exactly without thinking about the potential hazards associated with the chemicals. There’s no decent, by-the-book way for students to learn about these practical things, so a few warnings from a senior student is always a good idea.
On TMS-diazomethane, definitely. Not very many people know that 2 people died in the last 2 years because of it.
Funny that you mention TMS-diazomethane- I do use that as an example in my notes currently of respecting and understanding chemicals regardless of context. Since TMS-diazomethane was originally developed as a safe alternative to blow-uppy, gaseous, shock sensitive, supremely toxic diazomethane (and its precursors aren’t great for you either), so people tend to think it’s not that bad for you, because the alternative is so much worse. Shock sensitive though it is not, the ensuing pulmonary edema will have you wishing for shrapnel as a faster alternative to death.
MIT also used ethyl chlorocarbonate as one of their examples (woman drops bottle of ethyl chlorocarbonate sans carrier, explodes on her, ends badly). I don’t think of it being that toxic, but well..
It’s the things that you don’t expect that seem to provide the worst lessons.
Policies aside, and by that I mean risk assessments too, I think the most important thing to teach is more hands on than anything else. There are so many times when using a new piece of equipment that I have had my heart racing because I wasn’t 100% on how to use it. I couldn’t really ask anyone because noone had done it before. I agree with party also. A quick checklist and a lot of preparation before leaping into the experiment should be stressed. If you don’t know how to do it then ask and if noone knows then try to find out. If you are pointing out lab methods I would recommend the Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry book as a great guide for getting started as a postgrad. There are a lot of detailed techniques in there and so much benefit can come from just a quick read.
Also, nobody has mentioned the lab book and how to set that out. I have seen so many poorly documented experiments (mine included) that have made me slap my forehead in frustration because the experiment is essentially unreproducible. If you are going to stress anything its that the work they do needs to be documented well. Also have to agree with Johnny Fetzer and the others who stressed lab cleanliness as well as lab comfort. Setting up is just as important as running the reaction. If you are running around looking for some glassware or constantly cleaning up after others you can get very sick of the lab very quickly.
We love looking at horror story pictures. All of the safety talks I enjoyed in the past include those in one form or another.
Anyway, when is the talk? Can I go?
it’s the first lecture of donut class. ask your 1st year organic friends. you can come if you want to… saturday at 9am!
HA HA! Saturday at 9 am? Take THAT 1st years!
Some comments on how to safely use a liquid N2 trap for your high-vac line might be helpful. Even if students have done previous research, they may not have been responsible for their trap and pump.
I would tell them to wear glasses no matter what and learn which classes of chemicals are always nasty and in what way. Tell them not to scale the shit up on the first attempt because exotherms happen.
Give them matter-of-fact description of the most common mishaps in the lab, and the instructions how to proceed about them: a runaway reaction that blew in your face, spilled flammables, the fire, the cuts, chemical burns, flooded hood.
Explain that sometimes it pays to stop and think for few seconds – especially when you doused yourself with a nasty stuff and your reaction caught on fire.
Tell them that is no shame in being clumsy and braking stuff, but that they should not hurry because the time skipped on preparation and planning and execution is more then lost in the resulting screw-up. That fast-and-brave young chemists may end up with an eye-patch and hook.
I have a lovely personal account from Barry Sharpless about how he got his glass eye. He was looking at a sealed NMR tube cooled in liquid nitrogen that one of his students had, and saw the condensed liquid oxygen inside immediately evaporate and overpressurize the tube, leading to the tube exploding in his eye. That was in 1970.
MIT still used that story (a while ago) to tell undergrads why they should wear goggles/glasses.Picturing a NMR tube puncturing your eye seems to be good inspiration to wear something.
Sharpless’ written personal account is here:
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/1992/safety-0311.html
I think most of the other posts have missed one crucial piece of advice, except for maybe organic overdose.
The best resource for general lab safety are the people who work in the lab. There is more information than what you can write in a book/paper/thesis in terms of safe practical chemistry that is passed on through mentorship. I would be stressing to the first year grads to ask allot of questions early – I mean they are new and should be given a bit of slack by the older group members w.r.t asking lots of questions, particularly if it is in the form of have you ever used this reagent or how do I make this piece of equipment work etc…
Also, by asking lots of questions early you open good lines of communication. As far as I can tell it is just as important for the people around you to know of the risks involved in what you are doing as for you to know them – esspecially as in the worst case scenario it is likely they who will have to act as well.
just my 2 cents
Yes! This. When in doubt, ask!
Whatever you do, make sure you cover vacuum pump/trap safety! Especially if using liquid N2 as a coolant, special precautions must be taken.
I would also second (third?) the comment about always asking yourself before you do something: (1) What is the worst that can happen?, and (2) What would I do if the worst happened or in case of a spill, etc?
Also, while MSDS’s are not always that helpful, they do have some invaluable information about chemicals. Sure, even sand has an MSDS that can scare you, but I’d be really scared if a grad student used something like tBuLi without knowing it was pyrophoric.
Goggles and gloves, and for the love of God tell them not to act like biologists (no goggles, no gloves, shorts, flip-flops, cavalier attitude when it comes to radioactivity/carcinogens, etc.).
Rinse your empty solvent bottle with water before you convert it into an acid waste bottle.
Also—liquid nitrogen will not put out a fire.
of course – you need to use liquid oxygen
When weighing out solid chemicals, be careful about spills. This holds especially true for dye molecules, or you will regret it next time it rains.
It won’t take that long. (We learned that during an undergrad lab on laser dynamics of Rhodamine 6G.)
That’s because it’s relatively water soluble.
Well, what’s the worth that can happen – you’ll make a huge colorful mess and/or dye all your clothes funny when doing laundry.
I don’t remember having problems with it dyeing things – it was just that the powder was so fine that it got everywhere in lab.
Maybe people will be more well behaved with more toxic things (or, more likely, fewer people will be using them), but I’m not hopeful. If they’re fine powders, there are likely to be problems.
Tell them to be lucky. I’m convinced that’s the only reason I didn’t kill myself in lab.
I don’t have nearly the chops of some of the people like Milkshake posting here, but I do currently work in an academic lab and can give a report on the ground.
Here are the worst offenders from actual use – the things that I see being done in an unsafe manner daily.
- Silica gel sprayed around like it is talcum powder. People need to keep this crap wet or in a hood, preferably both.
- Vacuum lines run in an unsafe fashion, people failing to keep hood sashes down / running LN2 traps without good vacuum pressure (someone called Liquid Oxygen?) / not checking glassware for star-cracks / accidentally pulling vacuum on terrible things like ether bottles.
- Heavy metals being chucked into aqueous waste or spilled and not cleaned up WELL. Any Hg reagent should be cleaned up with sulfur (I use a suspension of sublimed sulfur in detergent water) and disposed of in separate waste. Your non-deformed children will thank you.
- I trust we don’t need to point out pyrophoric solutions like tBuLi. A video of the needle bursting into flame is indicated, and will wake up the people in the back without even needing to shine the laser pointer in their eyes.
- DCM and chloroform being used out on the open bench so that everyone downwind from you is blessed with their vapors. And then not disposed of properly in halogenated waste, but left in unlabeled containers.
- Alkylating agents and volatile heavy metals like trimethyltin chloride, OsO4, methyl iodide, etc. Acutely toxic things that even if you don’t kill your labmates with, you can inflict a staggering headache and a miserable night on just by having these things out on the bench w/o good ventilation.
Address these things, and you’ll make the average lab 10x safer.
agreed to most of this, though i would emphasis the quiet lab accidents and steer away from videos of exploding needles. butyl lithium may make for a more sensational accident, but for every accident with something so dramatic there are thousands of chemists out there giving themselves cancer
you should always take the time to familiarize yourself with the threat your reagents pose to you, and when you are synthesizing something unknown, it is best to err on the side of caution. someone i once worked with was incredibly careful with lithium aluminum hydride, but didnt even wear gloves when handling his novel compounds which were expected to have biological activity
In all seriousness, though, one of the most important ways first years can be safe is simply by listening to the older grad students in their group. A lot of first years, particularly men in synthetic organic chemistry, tend to be really cocky and refuse to listen to the graduate students with more experience than them (especially if they’re female). Maybe this is just my experience, but the young whippersnappers think they know everything when they really know nothing.
Omit the “by” in that first sentence. Sorry. A certain someone (Adam L.) is making me very self-conscious about my grammar these days.
Hey listen, I listened to everything you said, to the point that I actually have no idea why I’m doing certain things and am only doing them because you said so.
And actually I think your grammar was correct. Jerk.
A lot of first years, particularly men in synthetic organic chemistry, tend to be really cocky and refuse to listen to the graduate students with more experience than them (especially if they’re female).
I resemble that statement! (actually, no. well i was, and am, a cocky arrogant twit, i still listened to our senior female lab members on pain of death)
My first semester back in o-chem my TA provided us with a wonderfully useful mantra to mutter every time we walked into lab. Borrowed from Mel Brooks, the phrase “Remember thou art mortal” has saved more than a few fingers over the years. The greatest blessing and worst curse experience brings is over confidence. If you can stop dangerous activities before they become bad habits, then you have definitely done your job with the safety speech.
im not sure that quote can be attributed to mel brooks lol
History of the World, Part I, man. They might not have said it first, but they said it best.
I haven’t seen “History of the World, Part I” in awhile, so it’s possible he did say that.
Anyways, it comes from the saying that a slave would whisper in the ear of a Roman General during a Triumph, “Memento mori.”
Aye, the quote originates far earlier than History of the World part 1, but it was the example our TA used, so he was the source I cited.
My two cents:
As several of the above commenters also mentioned, as time passes I similarly find myself leaning more towards emphasizing the correct attitude and approach, instead of a barrage of “Do’s and Don’t” about a lot of specifics. There is a huge amount of stuff that they need to take the time to learn, in order to be a working professional, and it can’t be taught in a morning safety class. Such as, really learning about the chemicals they are working with and how to access that information. Knowing chemical fire safety. Knowing how to choose the right glove protection. Knowing basic first aid. Common accident causes. Those are all key things and yet they can take months/years to get right and are part of the process of being a chemist.
So if you’ve got limited time, it might be better to keep to an overview of what they need to be aware of (and need to make sure they go off and learn later), and focus on what kind of attitude is key for staying safe. ASK FIRST. Always keep respect and a little fear in your heart towards your work. Learn how to plan things out correctly and keep an open mind. Always keep a basic standard of protective gear and increase it as necessary. Don’t just do things because “other people do them that way”. Keep a high standard about how you plan your workflow and safety and understand that it’s as much about having the courtesy to protect others as well as yourself. Understanding that accidents are WHEN and not IF and that correct planning is what mitigates the inevitable.
I’ve seen a lot of accidents over time, and in almost every case I can think of it was a combination of a knowledge deficiency PLUS the incorrect attitude / approach. Conversely I’ve seen a lot of accidents avoided because people just dropped the fronting and asked about something they were going to do *even though* in some cases they thought they already knew.
Never let your undergraduates work alone. We had an undergraduate blow up a several-hundred gram scale reaction with Jones’ reagent, *alone*. The aftermath was not pleasant, to say the least.
Let me amend that. Don’t do *anything* dangerous alone. There are so many horror stories about it, and it’s exacerbated by those that brag about how many hours they work, all the time they spend alone in the lab…it’s not safe, and it gets people killed.
Remind people about proper waste disposal. Use the UT-Austin fire as an example. Explosions and fires are no good.
Consider the use of hearing protection. Those fume hoods can cause midrange hearing loss. I know this firsthand. Even a cheap pair of foam earplugs (often available in science stores) can protect you while still allowing you to remain aware of your surroundings.
Double check your hot plate/oil bath combo even if you’re sure you turned it off. You may have turned it up to 11 instead and the other students left in the lab will have to put out the ensuing 4′ column of flame. Twice. Scratch that. Double check *everything* to make sure you turned it off.
I’m sure there’s more.
The safety people at my grad school actually told us to unplug hotplates when they weren’t in use. Absolutely guarantees they aren’t left on accidentally and also saves energy.
exc-
Posting thoughts quickly, haven’t had a chance to read all the comments.
I’m sure you’ve got plenty on specifics, examples, lab set-up, etc, but here’s the basic survival guide (worth repeating)
1) Listen…no matter how much you think you already know, others can still help you.
2) Ask…(see #1)
3) Pause…better to think twice and act once.
4) Sleep…no matter how busy you think you are, you’re more productive rested.
5) The only chemicals that will ever hurt you are the ones you don’t respect.
c
I’ll have to second the sleep comment. Even being slightly tired can vastly affect the quality of your work. In academic labs there’s a lot of pressure to stay late and just chug another coffee. From my own experiences, if you push yourself too hard, chances are you’ll just f-up everything you worked so hard to accomplish during the day.
There’s screwing up from being sleepy, and there’s also getting sick. Both will adversely affect lab performance!
and then there is hungover
It hurts so bad that I’m never gonna drink again
I’ll probably never drink again
At least not till the next weekend
Proper safety gear. No matter what you do to minimize risks, you’ll never eliminate them completely. And even then, every once in a while, the planets align just-so, and freak accidents occur. Considering protective gear is the last line of defense, I’d say it’s pretty important.
I think scale-ups need to be mentioned in particular. Especially since most of these guys are starting from scratch on projects and will most likely be needing so make SM in large quantities.
story time: Guy runs test reaction on 50-100 mgs – its an LAH reduction – quenches all of that fine. Done with magnetic stirbar 100mL flask, you know, the standard. Moves directly onto 15g scale but has some wired issue with using really big flasks so he concentrates the reaction for the scale up and continues to use magnetic stirring. Goes to quench but reaction gets all sloshy and doesn’t mix well (note magnetic stirring) and then all of a sudden the rest of the reaction quenches and starts a nice little hood fire. Looses the whole reaction and a days work.
All of this could be avoided by thinking about your scaleup. Exotherms, stirring, concentration, what is approprate glassware for this amount (think about workup too). Think also about order of additions and possible unstable side products that would be formed when at scale. If your going to change concentrations dramatically it would probably be good to run another test at that concentration (it could have a large effect on yeild not to mention safety concerns). In many cases 15 minutes of forethought will save you a ton of effort later on. Like the addage 3 hrs in the library will save you 30 at the bench.
With all the good general advice that seems to be going around here, do you think it would be appropriate to post the .pdf of your seminar afterwards? When I’m responsible for supervising undergrads, I always give safety advice as things come, It would be great to have some concise resource that I could go over with them in a sitting.
I plan on it. It will not be exhaustive by any means, but it’ll be something.
Wear Eye protection at all times-you can not get a new set of Eyes
possibly not in your remit but teach them about Fires and how to put them out. Practical training in fire fighting is recommended- have you used an extinguisher?
Remember – there is no such thing as a small fire, only a big fire looking for some where to happen!
Re Scale up- Read some blogs on it,Gaussling gives good advice
Whenver possible, ask someone who has run the same type of reaction before. Generally will help with both the safety and effectiveness of the reaction you run (double bonus!).
Always remain cognizant of the worst case, especially when using things like BuLi of any type. If you are aware you might get a little fire from the needle you are less likely to freak out and accidentally hit the plunger in such an event and probably creating a problem that didn’t exist.
Get a lab coat and wear it. Keeps clothes from getting ruined nearly as quickly AND is a layer of protection.
Because sometimes exotherms happen, people should do what they can to monitor internal temperature. It’s very helpful, even when you see the temps go 8, 12, 15, 30, whoooosh!
Label everything, from reagents to waste bottles. This helps prevent things like pouring sulfuric acid waste into a waste container full of organics. This is especially important when cleaning out fridges: if the round bottom flask isn’t labelled, how is a person to know how to dispose of it? I’ve heard nasty stories of exploding waste containers due to unlabelled contents being poured into incorrect waste containers.
I don’t know what the regulations are around the world, but when a colleague and I updated the chemical inventory in our lab, we found that all the acids and bases were stored together in the corrosive cabinets, because they were all corrosives… Separate them (obviously)!!
Also, do not come into work when you have the flu. A prerequisite for working in my lab is the ability to control bodily fluids. Someone who needs to go into work when they are obviously hurting—in order to keep up appearances—is the lowest form of graduate student. Quit. Sell shit for VWR. Just stay away!
“……have notes from the prof who used to to this seminar, the powers that be decided that it would be best if a senior graduate student did the talk”
I hope that in agreeing to give the talk in place of a faculty member you have considered (and been satsified) with the legal ramifications should an accident happen after your “tuition”.
Someone’s parents are bound to sue your ass as you “did not tell them” something. A faculty member would probably be at least a co-defendee with the Chair of the department with some University backing / support.
Good points, but I am doubtful such a situation would occur.
1. My talk was to graduate students, all of whom, it is a fair assumption to make, are no longer dependents of their parents, financially or otherwise.
2. Legally, as I am an employee of the school and was at the time acting as an employee of the school, they can’t sue me without suing the school and department as well. Furthermore, the prof who was in charge of the class would be the most responsible party.
3. This talk goes above and beyond the legally-required lab safety training as mandated by OSHA, which all graduate students are required to go through before they even step in a lab here.
Sorry to jump into the conversation late, but the people talking about cavalier know-it-all group members reminded me of something. When considering their own safety people often forget that the people around them can be a hazard as well. I may very well know what reaction is running in my hood and be positive that I can go check on it without wearing my lab coat or gloves, but I don’t always know exactly what the guy next to me is doing and if something happens in his hood it’s probably going to affect me as well.
I’m sure that every department has that one grad student that just seems bent on doing their own thing and if something happens to them nobody will be surprised. If that person happens to work near you then it’s imperative to remain vigilant, even if you’re following all safety protocols.
just because they’ve done research doesn’t mean they know a lot about safety. i’m a senior undergrad and did some summer research the past two summers. my chem safety program at my school is pretty intensive since one of our profs is a volunteer firefighter and writing a book on chem safety (http://www.amazon.com/Laboratory-Safety-Four-Year-Chemistry-Laboratory-based/dp/0470344288).
I can say that when i left my university for summer research I saw some crazy stuff by undergrads, grad students, and even profs! i was working in a nanofab lab this past summer and we used 6 M HF for etchant. Almost everyone in the lab just used safety glasses and non-resistant gloves – no face mask, thicker gloves, or even safety goggles! there were also engineers in the lab who were more freaking out about not having gloves on when they were using acetone – not realizing that it will go right through the gloves and won’t do anything horrible to you.
i know you talk is probably over, but with safety most people just need to know to be aware of what’s going on around them and not to assume anything. I know that lot’s of times people want to talk “smart” about safety, going into all the chemical details on how things react and why bad things are going on, but when something goes wrong, that’s not going to matter. awareness is the key. educate students on what they should be aware of and what to do if something slips by.
I’d like to see somebody start writing short sensible, rational, bullshit-free versions of MSDSs for chemicals, telling people where the real hazards exist – and where no real hazards exist.
For example:
Acetone: Highly flammable and volatile. Avoid ignition sources. Miscible with water – use water for fire suppression. Avoid inhalation and skin contact, but don’t freak out if either accidentally happens because it really won’t hurt you. Don’t drink it.
NaOH: Corrosive. Don’t get it on your skin, and don’t get it in your eyes at all. Flush with water if either of the above happens. Don’t eat it.
tBuLi: Pyrophoric – ignites spontaneously on contact with air, making it very hazardous. Assuming that the tBuLi is dissolved in a flammable solvent such as hexane, this means that all the carrier solvent will ignite spontaneously on contact with air. Must be stored and transferred under an inert atmosphere at all times, and must be handled with extreme caution. Use great care when transferring it via syringe, and ensure that you’re familiar with appropriate handling practices.
Sodium bicarbonate: Harmless, period.
Sodium chloride: Harmless, period.
Very sensible! … and therefore unlikely to happen. MSDS’s are apparently CYA documents written by people who have been scared by lawyers instead of the useful informative material you (and I) wish was available..
Just take enough care in the laboratory. keep clear lines is necessary.