Fun With Chemicals at Work...

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Alrighty, as a few of you know, I get to work with numerous chemicals at my job...and I was wndering if anyone else here gets to "play" with chemicals at their work/school, and which ones.

As for me, on a daily basis, I use:

• H2SO4 - Sulfuric Adid
• NH4OH - Ammonium Hydroxide
• Hydrofluric Acid 100:1
• H2O2 - Hydrogen Peroxide (39%)
• N2 - Nitrogen
• A mixture of gasses known as DCE and a polly-silicon gas.
• De-ionized H2O - The worst possible chemical in the world!

But there are other, more dangerous chemicals that are used in other departments...like Arsine. Here's a quote from the MSDS (Material Saftey Data Sheet) for Arsine:

I feel sorry for the poor guy that found out what it smelled like, as he probably died soon after.

So, what chemicals do you work with?

 

That is enough for me not to want to play with any chemicals...

 

C8H10N4O2, also known as 1,3,7-trimethylxanthine

 

Does caffeine count, Rallymama? I usually prefer CH3CH2OH.

Actually, I'm a research chemist. My lab has over 300 different chemicals that I use regularly. My work is primarily in polymer chemistry dealing with acrylates, urethanes, and epoxies. I usually try not to have anything too deadly lying around, but we use some fairly corrosive stuff. And stinky -- we have stinky, too.

 

I used to work in an art supply store. My identical twin bosses were of the opinion that nothing is really that dangerous as long as you don't spray a lot of it. Generally the store smelled like a mixture between turpentine, airbrush cleaning fluid, and spray fixitive for drawings. This might not be what you consider "working with chemicals" but I think I inhailed enough toxic substances to perserve several body parts in their present condition long after I'm dead. I imagine there is a nice big fat neon light over my body that says "welcome various obscure cancer cells, luxurious accomodations for you!" Anyone who wonders why many artists of the past have died prematurely do not know how many chemicals there are in art supplies.

 

i have tried experiments with most of the drugs you listed there, before i attended business school, i studied chemistry physics and biology

 

Yeah, we have CH3CH2OH too...but I don't get to use it.

On Friday night on our *deep breath* Mercury MP Spray Acid Tool, had a broken air filter that also cracked open the injector line for the H2SO4. The leak wasn't very big, and the regulators didn't notice the small drop in the line pressure, but it ruined everything inside the machine that wasn't made out of Teflon. The funny thing is, our air monitors are what detected the leak...the air filter was a secondary line, and it's failure only turned on a warning light, which was ignored. I guess the acid caused a small vapor cloud, and our air quality monitor alarms went off shortly after. From looking at the machine, you couldn't tell that anything was wrong. I was hoping for some visible destruction! No one was even hurt either!

So now the cleaning process is now the bottleneck of the Diffusion Bays.

Any other SP members playing as a chemist?

 

Haha, I'm taking Highschool Honor's Chemistry, does that count? No, but at least you guys can help me with my homework...

 

ehm Kitrax: why is de-ionized water the worst chemical in the world?

 

Because it's water! Mt. Dew is better!

Seriously though...the only time I actually drink plain water is when I'm taking medication. I just hate how it tastes. 'Arrowhead' brand water is by far the worst there is too.

 

I used to work in nice laboratory, I wore full haz-mat suit with independent oxygen supply. On tap I had Liquid Oxygen and Nitrogen, amongst the chemicals I handled were Hydrogen Cyanide, Potassium Cyanide, Glutaraldehyde, Hydroflouric acid, Hydrochloric acid, Nitric acid, Acetone, Methyl ethyl ketone, Iso-propyl Alchohol and they were the nice one.

 

Maybe that explains why you have no skin and look like a dragon.

 

Many names that I have no idea how to translate (wide range of cleaning products) + C2H5OH

 

Ooh Dragonfly how did you guess but I think it may have been some of the materials I sampled and analysed that did that

 

Pronouncing chemical names is actually quite easy, as the name is usually a bucnh of other names squeezed together.

Isopropyl Alcohol = "Ice-O-pro-fill"
Hydrofluric Acid = "Hydro" + "Floor-ick"

Just take each word a segment at a time, and you can usually get them right.

 

Do you chemists actually use Significant Digits? I find them to be inaccurate, such as when you are only allowed 2 digits, and have to round 17.501 to 18. In medicine, that .499 could kill someone. So inaccurate...

That is the sole reason I am not becoming a chemist.

 

My chem teacher is crazy about sig. figs. (significant figures). Anyway the Hydrochloric Acid most schools use is usually 0.5 M (1 Mole [6.22 x 10^23 particles] in 1 L of water) - pretty boring, and worst of all they make us take all these stupid security measures around it. The HCl I have for my pool is 10M - (20 times as concentrated as the school stuff) and I dont take 1/2 the safety precautions.

We have quite a bit of Sodium at school - but we're not allowed to use it.

 

Well, considering after 6M, acids tend to get irritating, I'd use caution around the pool. .5 won't do too much immediately, just get it off of you soon. And plus, they don't want to be held responsible if you burn your eyes out, or something, so they make you take large precautions.

 

@saber when I was working in the labs and getting my chemistry degree significant decimal places are everything you usually use 4 or 5, scales you use are incredibly accurate. Typically in the work I used to do the samples I would take for a suspension (liquid) 100-500 microlitres and a solid 100-200 milligrams, dependent on final concentrations necessary (parts per million). In your example 17.501 to 2 significant places becomes 17.50, and also remember that medical pharmacy (drugs) is just an expansion of chemistry.

 

Well I'm second year in Industrial Chemistry so let me see
H2SO4-can't compare the burning sensation I had with anything else until now , but there is still time
HCN-the teacher said that we will deal with more dangerous stuff but this is dangerous enough for me
HF
Na- a friend had some scary moments in an experiment when his glass exploded
I actually had to write 5 pages of work protection
at my first analytical chemistry lab ,and at my first organic chemistry lab the teacher said that we will have accidents , half of us already agree with her .