While they are not applicable to simulation-based experiments, it is critical for all students to be familiar with them and to follow them in the chemical laboratory.

The chemistry laboratory, while highly instructive educationally, contains a large number of hazards which students must be cognizant of. Safety in the chemistry laboratory is the joint responsibility of all students as well as all faculty and staff members involved in its delivery. It is therefore your responsibility to ensure that everything you do is safe and follows approved procedures.

Superseding Expectations

• You are responsible for familiarizing yourself with and following the
  IU Laboratory Safety Policy and the Laboratory Safety and Chemical Hygiene Plan.
• Students are expected to behave in a professional manner at all times.
• Students who are pregnant must inform the laboratory instructor as soon as possible to discuss potential, specific hazards.  We will make sure that your needs are accommodated in a reasonable manner.  Similarly, those with accessibility concerns should be sure to contact the IU East Office of Accessibility Services to discuss accommodations.
• If you have any questions or concerns about your experiment, please be sure to consult your instructor before proceeding.
• Laboratory practice and safety regulations may change with time as new rules and regulations are promulgated by law, by IU policy, or by campus/school mandates, or as an instructor determines. It is your responsibility to make sure all safety rules are followed.
• Do not perform unauthorized experiments.
• Let your instructor know immediately if an accident occurs.

Motivation

There are a number of potential dangers that lurk in the chemistry laboratory, which include:

• Fire and explosions.
• Electrical dangers.
• Cuts through contact with sharps.
• Toxic exposure through absorption, ingestion, injection, and inhalation.

Safety rules are designed to help prevent accidents and Apart from these general rules, for many experiments there are specific directions that are provided to help ensure safety. You are responsible for following these as well as any instructions given by your instructor as well.

By participating in this course, you signify your absolute willingness to follow these safety rules and other instructions provided by your instructor and the laboratory supervisor. Breaches of safety rules may lead to ejection from the laboratory without make-up time being provided as well as other grade-related sanctions.

Dress Code

Students in the chemical laboratory are expected to abide by the following dress code:

• Eye Protection: The wearing of safety goggles that protect all sides of the eye is required at all times while you’re in the laboratory; there will be no exceptions. Safety glasses that do not completely protect your eyes from all sides are strictly forbidden.
  • The wearing of contact lenses is discouraged but not forbidden. Students who wear contact lenses must obtain a red sticker to place on the side of their goggles.
  • Sometimes goggles will fog up. Special wipes are provided to prevent this, and you should ask for these when your goggles start to fog up, and wipe your goggles quickly to remove the fog.
• Face Covering: Per IU policy, surgical masks (not cloth face coverings) are required to be worn in the laboratory.  If these are to be reused, they should be placed in a labeled paper bag before leaving the laboratory.
• Street Clothing: Please wear the following.  Loose clothing should be avoided and constrained where appropriate.
  • Shirts with sleeves; long-sleeved shirts are preferred.
  • Long pants, skirts or dresses; shorts and short skirts are not allowed.
  • Closed-toe shoes; sandals and other open-toe shoes are not allowed.
  • Dangling jewelry is not allowed.
• Hair: Hair must be tied back when flames are used in the laboratory.
• Lab Coats:^[1]  All students must wear a lab coat throughout the laboratory period. Students are required to have their own lab coat.
• Gloves: Use of latex or nitrile gloves are required in the laboratory. To prevent latex allergies, the use of nitrile gloves is preferred in general.

Behaviors

It is important that all students in the laboratory behave in an appropriate manner in order to ensure that the laboratory environment is as safe as possible for everyone.

Do

• Know the location of safety equipment: emergency showers, eyewashes, fire extinguishers, fire alarms, first aid kit, spill kits.
• Be prepared for every experiment. You should understand the steps involved in the experiment before you walk into the laboratory. If you’re unprepared and/or do not understand the procedures you are performing, you will potentially make dangerous mistakes in your procedure.
• Follow approved procedures. Consult with your instructor if you believe it would be a good idea to deviate from planned procedures or if you are not sure.
• Ensure that centrifuges are balanced when you use them. This means that opposing sides on a centrifuge rotor have about the same amount of content on each side. When dealing with aqueous solutions or similar substances and you do not have two similar/identical test tubes/centrifuge tubes, you may add tap/distilled water to an empty tube to act as a counterweight.
• Label all containers you use appropriately using lab tape and markers.  Keep things organized so you minimize unsafe work conditions.
• Keep everything tidy in the laboratory and wipe up any spills as they occur. Be sure to tidy up and wipe down the bench before you leave the laboratory.
• Rinse all glassware with tap water and remove as much of the chemical residue as possible before placing it in the dirty dishes pan. Glassware replaced into the locker should be washed with soap and then rinsed with tap water, followed by deionized water.
• Use fume hoods when experiments result in the release of toxic or flammable fumes.

Don’t

• Enter the laboratory without an instructor being present.
• Food and drink are explicitly forbidden in the laboratory. It is permissible to keep sealed food and drink containers in your bag; however, it must not be visible in the laboratory and, most importantly, eating and drinking is forbidden in the laboratory. Chewing gum is explicitly forbidden.
  • Occasionally, food and drink items are used as chemicals. In these instances, they are treated as chemicals and must not be consumed
  • Do not use laboratory glassware to consume food.
  • Do not drink water from lab water sources.
• Applying cosmetics/make-up is forbidden.
• Do not use chipped or cracked glassware; this should be reported to the instructor.
• Smell or taste chemicals.
• Pipette by mouth.
• Leave laboratory experiments unattended without prior approval.

Waste Disposal

For environmental, health and safety reasons, hazardous waste from the laboratory must be segregated appropriately and disposed of in accordance with state and federal law.

• Only inert waste shall be disposed of in the trash cans.
• Clean, broken glass (or disposable glass components) shall be disposed of in the glass boxes.
  • Broken glass should be reported to the instructor who will clean it up and dispose of it.
  • Specific hazardous chemical containers may be used to dispose of contaminated, disposal glass items (e.g. glass pipettes).
• Unless directed by your instructor, waste chemicals must not be disposed of down the drain. All chemicals must be collected and disposed of in designated containers provided in the fume hoods.

Procedures for Common Problems

Inevitably spills, breakages, and other problems occur in the laboratory. The following guidelines are provided for most problems.

Chemical Spills

Small chemical spills on the bench should be wiped down with towels as soon as possible. Larger scale chemical spills shall be referred to the instructor, who shall contain and clean up the spill using materials from the spill kit in the laboratory.

Broken Glass

If glass is broken, it should be reported immediately to the instructor for clean-up. Do not attempt to clean this up.

Fire

Small-scale laboratory fires should be reported to the instructor. In larger-scale fires, be sure to sound the alarm and evacuate as soon as practicable.

Be prepared to evacuate and follow all instructor instructions as needed.