Mastodawn

When you go to get something out of the cabinet (which turned out not to be there anyway) and discover something else is A Problem.

This was the boron tribromide with the "use in three months of pack date" that I was shipped in July of last year. I haven't touched it since maybe late September, at which point it looked pretty normal. The bottle itself is inside this secondary container and I'm a little worried what it's going to look like when I open it...plastic cap maybe totally disintegrated?

#Chemistry #ChemiVerse

Sam Levine 4d ago

3 pairs of gloves, ~150 mL MeOH, 2 separate handwashing steps, and an unknown amount of paper towels later this has been dealt with.

I ended up punching through one of the cracks with a large bore needle and swapping for a smaller needle + syringe to remove the remaining reagent to a Schlenk flask (the small amount can be seen in the back corner of the photo) because trying to quench the remaining reagent when it couldn't be well stirred seemed like a recipe for disaster.

The Witchy Bitches 4d ago

@SRLevine @cmdrmoto Yikes! This sounds absolutely scary. And kind of exhausting for you. I hope that you have some way to relax later today!

@SRLevine YIKES.

MCDuncanLab 5d ago

And thank you for reminding me why I’m glad I’m not a chemist. I use chemicals 10 yrs past their expiration and the worst that’s gonna happen is my yeaties are sad.

Sam Levine 5d ago

@MCDuncanLab Oh I use stuff super old all the time. Including "so old the plastic broke when you picked it up" types. But certain things are just nasty, nasty compounds. This is in a glass bottle, but the cap is plastic and I think teflon lined and that still isn't enough...

MCDuncanLab 5d ago

Oh yeah fur sure, you probably use a lot of the chemicals I use. But the ven diagram is nearly all chemicals I use contained in chemicals you use.

Chemicals you use that I don’t scare me.

Fugue State Machine Moto 5d ago

@SRLevine I do hope you’re planning to post photos of whatever the BBr3 did to its container, just as soon as you’re in a safe position to do so

Sam Levine 5d ago

@cmdrmoto I'm not sure it's going to be photogenic? I might have to open it and plunge it into a thing of water.* Discovering it at 4:30PM made it a tomorrow morning problem because I'm less likely to screw up the quench when I'm not hungry.

*I haven't actually looked up the quench protocol yet.

Fugue State Machine Moto 5d ago

@SRLevine your chemical safety trumps all my looky-loo interest; reassured to know you’re the kind of person who takes full HALT conditions into consideration.

Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)5d ago

@cmdrmoto @SRLevine hungry, angry, loopy?, tired? what's L again?

Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)5d ago

@cmdrmoto @SRLevine for some chem I nominate Alone to be one of the HALT conditions.

Fugue State Machine Moto 3d ago

@iris @SRLevine lonely, as in: don’t do a thing which might incapacitate you unless there’s someone else around who can rescue your incapacitated ass

Iris Young (he/they/she) (PhD)3d ago

@cmdrmoto @SRLevine oh, now I feel very stupid for suggesting adding "alone".

Fugue State Machine Moto 3d ago

@iris @SRLevine you had the right idea; i see nothing stupid here

Sam Levine 3d ago

@iris @cmdrmoto Don't be down on yourself, I had to look up HALT to understand the comment at all.

Steve Gisselbrecht 3d ago

@cmdrmoto @iris @SRLevine

I was told not to use PMSF after everyone else had left for the day.

Sam Levine 3d ago

@stevegis_ssg @cmdrmoto @iris PMSF, really? biologists are so weird...

(they use HCl without PPE but get paranoid about something like PMSF?)

Steve Gisselbrecht 3d ago

@SRLevine @cmdrmoto @iris

It's not like I'm exactly afraid to die; it's just such a nasty way to go.

Sam Levine 3d ago

@stevegis_ssg @cmdrmoto @iris I literally ran serine hydrolase labeling and inhibition experiments for a good chunk of my post-doc work. It's not going to eat through my gloves and it isn't volatile, I'm not super worried about it.

MCDuncanLab 3d ago

@SRLevine @stevegis_ssg @cmdrmoto @iris

Wait what about PMSF?

I really wish chemicals came with a little comic book of here’s how this chemical can hurt you.

Like I know that’s what the little icons are supposed to be, but there’s like toxic if you guzzle it and toxic if you touch a grain and the signage isn’t much different.

Steve Gisselbrecht 2d ago

@MCDuncanLab @SRLevine @cmdrmoto @iris

It's not much more toxic than a lot of other things we use. It's just that, like, ethidium causes cancer, but if you die of PMSF poisoning you die because it inhibits acetylcholinesterase and every voluntary muscle in your body locks up. That gives me the ick in a big way.

MCDuncanLab 2d ago

@stevegis_ssg @SRLevine @cmdrmoto @iris

Yeah--except ethidium bromide does not cause cancer as far as I understand. It has to get to your liver to be metabolized to something that will be toxic and it never gets past your skin to your bloodstream.

Plus, they feed it to livestock FFS.

Sybr-'safe' is actually more toxic.

https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/myth-ethidium-bromide

Steve Gisselbrecht 2d ago

@MCDuncanLab @SRLevine @cmdrmoto @iris

Ooh, good to know!

Sam Levine 2d ago

@MCDuncanLab I thought the problem with ethidium bromide was that it was a teratogen (mutagen yes, but teratogens freak people out a lot more)

@stevegis_ssg @cmdrmoto @iris

MCDuncanLab 2d ago

@SRLevine @stevegis_ssg @cmdrmoto @iris

I don't see evidence of it being either a mutagen or teratogen--again they feed it to livestock.

@SRLevine I inherited a box of stuff from my dad and found this inside.

I don't want to open it 😅

Alex@rtnVFRmedia Suffolk UK 5d ago

@shemjm @SRLevine AFAIK these are low level items used to demonstrate radioactivity in high school Physics lessons, and are limited risk (at least by safety standards of 1980s 😁) - I guess your dad was a teacher or lab tech in a school at some point?

@vfrmedia ha yeah I assumed they are probably safe-ish 😅 I am just extra cautious about this stuff. Unlike my dad who was a hobby chemist and a science teacher yeah 😁

He also left me an element collection that includes all the elements that one can legally own. No idea what to do with it. Maybe build a display.

@shemjm @vfrmedia Theodore Gray built a physical periodic table table for his collection:

https://theodoregray.com/PeriodicTable/

The Wooden Periodic Table Table

The Wooden Periodic Table Table by Theodore Gray

Wendinlondon 🇺🇦5d ago

@shemjm @vfrmedia @SRLevine Golly, I’m very curious!

@SRLevine hi again, just found another box of stuff that I have no idea about.

Could you tell me what this is for please?

#Chemistry #antiques

DrWhosit 2d ago

@shemjm @SRLevine Quickfit apparatus was usually used for distillations and reactions requiring heating. The joints were designed to fit snuggly and could be sealed with just a little grease for airtightness if needed. Looks like you have a few thermometers and pear shaped flasks, a delivery tube and some thin tubes for sending the product to a collecting recepticle.

@Franca @SRLevine thanks, I'm not really interested in chemistry. Maybe I should try to sell these bits

Sam Levine 2d ago

@shemjm @Franca Looks like a pretty standard student distillation setup, don't know how much money it would be worth to anyone unless it's collectible in some way (they sell pretty much identical modern versions of this both from scientific suppliers and places like amazon or ebay).

The problem might be that you have a mercury containing thermometer in there, which if I was in the market for a kit like this would having me backing up rapidly. The idea of potentially having to manage a broken one is a big nope.

@SRLevine @Franca oh right, I should probably check that they are in okay condition. I have another box of the same equipment too.

DrWhosit 1d ago

@shemjm @SRLevine Sure, there might be high schools even that could be interested. (if they have labs)