Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students

Citation

Hill, R. H., Jr., & Finster, D. C. (2016). Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students (2nd ed.). Wiley.

Chapter Summary

The second edition runs to about 576 pages in eight chapters, followed by an appendix and an index; the front matter has separate prefaces addressed to students and to instructors and a list of acronyms. The book is built to be read across a whole degree rather than in one sitting. Its sections carry three-part numbers, and the middle digit marks a layer: the section titles show first-layer sections pitched at introductory laboratories, second-layer sections at organic and other advanced teaching laboratories, and third-layer sections at upper-level and research work. The publisher describes this as a layered design in which some topics are covered two or three times at increasing depth, so a topic such as fire or spills reappears at each stage of study.

Chapter 1: Safety Culture

The opening chapter sets out the book's framework in "The Four Principles of Safety" and introduces green chemistry, then returns to both at higher levels: learning from laboratory incidents and green chemistry in the organic curriculum in the second layer; fostering a safety culture, employers' expectations of safety skills, laws and regulations, green chemistry as "the big picture", safety in chemistry demonstrations and the teaching assistant's role in the third.

Chapter 2: Preparing for Emergency Response

How to respond to laboratory emergencies, fires in introductory courses, chemical spills on a person or in the laboratory, and first aid. The second layer returns to fire in organic and advanced courses and to the causes, prevention, containment and clean-up of spills; a single third-layer section covers preparing for emergencies in research.

Chapter 3: Understanding and Communicating Laboratory Hazards

The information side of safety: routes of exposure, the signs, symbols and labels that make up the "language of safety", (material) safety data sheets and the Globally Harmonized System (GHS), other information resources and how to interpret SDS information. The chapter closes with chemical hygiene plans.

Chapter 4: Recognizing Laboratory Hazards: Toxic Substances and Biological Agents

An introduction to toxicology: basic concepts, how toxicity is measured, and acute toxicity, followed by chronic toxicity and then carcinogens, biological hazards and bloodborne pathogens, and the hazards of nanomaterials.

Chapter 5: Recognizing Laboratory Hazards: Physical Hazards

The longest chapter, with sixteen sections. It starts with corrosives and flammables in introductory laboratories, moves to corrosives in advanced laboratories, the chemistry of fire and explosions and incompatible chemicals, and ends with a long third layer on gas cylinders and cryogenic tanks, peroxides, reactive and unstable chemicals, pressure systems, electrical hazards, housekeeping, non-ionizing and ionizing radiation, cryogens, runaway reactions and catalysts.

Chapter 6: Risk Assessment

The step from knowing a hazard to judging a risk: living safely with hazards and making decisions about safety, then using the GHS to evaluate toxic hazards and understanding occupational exposure limits, and finally assessing chemical exposure and carrying out a risk assessment for a new experiment.

Chapter 7: Minimizing the Risks from Hazards

Controls and protective equipment. The first layer covers eye protection, protecting the skin with clothes, gloves and tools, and chemical hoods in introductory laboratories; the second revisits eye and face protection, skin protection and containment and ventilation in advanced laboratories. The third layer covers common laboratory operations, radiation and laser safety, biosafety levels and biological safety cabinets, hazardous atmospheres, research-laboratory safety and process safety.

Chapter 8: Chemical Management: Inspections, Storage, Wastes, and Security

The book ends with the management of chemicals: an introduction to chemical waste, storing flammables and corrosives and handling hazardous waste, then doing one's own safety inspection, managing chemicals and inventories, storage, and chemical security.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3: Culture, emergencies and hazard information

• RAMP: the book's four principles of safety (recognize hazards, assess risks, minimize risks, prepare for emergencies), which also give Chapters 3–8 their order.
• Safety culture: the shared attitudes and practices that make safe work normal in a laboratory, from students to teaching assistants.
• Green chemistry: designing chemistry to reduce hazards in the first place, introduced early and revisited at higher levels.
• GHS and safety data sheets: the international system of hazard classes, pictograms and labels, and the documents that carry hazard information for each chemical.
• Chemical hygiene plan: the written plan a laboratory keeps for protecting workers from chemical hazards.

Chapters 4–5: Recognizing hazards

• Acute and chronic toxicity: harm from a single exposure versus harm from repeated or long-term exposure; carcinogens are treated separately.
• Routes of exposure: the ways a substance enters the body, the starting point for both toxicology and protection.
• Incompatibles and reactive chemicals: combinations and substances, such as peroxide formers, that can react violently.

Chapters 6–8: Assessing and controlling risk

• Occupational exposure limits: limits on airborne concentrations used to judge whether an exposure is acceptable.
• Risk assessment for new experiments: evaluating the hazards of a procedure before it is run.
• Hierarchy of protection: hoods, ventilation and containment alongside eye, face and skin protection.
• Chemical management: inventories, segregated storage, waste handling, inspections and security of chemicals.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• A single framework throughout. The four principles of safety are introduced in Section 1.1.1, and Chapters 3–8 follow the same sequence of recognizing hazards, assessing risks and minimizing them, with emergency preparation brought forward to Chapter 2. A review in the Royal Society of Chemistry's Education in Chemistry (January 2017), quoted by the retailer Booktopia, said the RAMP system "takes centre stage" and serves as a useful aide-memoire across the range of topics.
• Built for a whole degree. The layered numbering lets a first-year student read only first-layer sections while a student starting research works through the third layer of the same chapter. The publisher states that the book aligns with the 2015 safety-instruction requirements of the American Chemical Society's Committee on Professional Training for bachelor's programmes.
• Real chemistry, not just rules. The same review found the book engaging for a dry subject, crediting the real-world examples at the start of each chapter, and noted sidebars that draw on kinetics, thermodynamics and organic chemistry; it judged the coverage broad enough to serve professionals as a reference.
• Breadth beyond chemical hazards. Sections on biological hazards and biosafety cabinets, ionizing and non-ionizing radiation, lasers, nanomaterials, process safety and chemical security make the book usable in mixed laboratories.

Limitations

• Written around the United States. Section 1.3.3 deals with laws and regulations, and the authors' background is in the US occupational-health and ACS safety community; readers elsewhere will need their own national regulations and their institution's rules.
• Not a book to read straight through. Because topics recur in layers, fire, spills, corrosives, eye protection and hoods are each split across two or three places; a student reading cover to cover meets repetition, and one using it as a reference must check every layer.
• Dates. Some regulatory and information-resource material reflects the state of things around 2015; check exposure limits, SDS sources and regulations against current versions.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the course's student textbook for safety, and the natural first reading. The National Research Council's Prudent Practices in the Laboratory is a committee-written reference on laboratory safety, management, facilities and law, free from the National Academies Press: it suits instructors, safety officers and students writing a risk assessment who need an authoritative reference, while Hill and Finster teach the same ideas to students stage by stage. Practical Skills in Chemistry is a broad guide to laboratory technique, data handling and study skills; it covers working safely as one theme among many, so it complements rather than replaces this book.

The two remaining titles are research-level technique manuals. Leonard, Lygo and Procter's Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry guides the move from teaching laboratories to synthetic research, and Shriver and Drezdzon's The Manipulation of Air-Sensitive Compounds is a monograph on inert-atmosphere equipment and procedures. Read the relevant third-layer sections of Chapters 5 and 7 (reactive chemicals, pressure systems, cryogens, hazardous atmospheres, research-laboratory safety) before or alongside either of them.

How to Use This Book

The book suits chemistry undergraduates from the first year, teaching assistants and instructors who need a safety curriculum, and students in neighbouring sciences who work in chemical laboratories. It needs only general chemistry; later sections assume organic chemistry and draw on more chemistry as they go.

A practical plan that follows the layers:

• First laboratory course: Sections 1.1.1–1.1.2, the first-layer sections of Chapters 2–5 (emergencies, fire, spills, first aid, exposure routes, labels and SDSs, basic toxicology, corrosives and flammables) and Sections 7.1.1–7.1.3 on eye, skin and hood protection. These are the core.
• Organic and advanced teaching laboratories: the second-layer sections of every chapter, with Chapter 6's first two layers on risk decisions, the GHS and exposure limits.
• Before research or a teaching-assistant role: Sections 1.3.1–1.3.6, 2.3.1, the third layers of Chapters 5 and 7, Sections 6.3.1–6.3.2 on exposure and risk assessment for new experiments, and Chapter 8 on inspections, storage, waste and security.
• Optional by laboratory type: the biological, nanomaterial, radiation and laser sections are essential where those hazards exist and can be skipped elsewhere.

Read the relevant sections before each new laboratory course rather than after an incident. Pair the reading with real documents: download the SDS for a chemical used that week and interpret it with Section 3.1.5, read the department's chemical hygiene plan alongside Section 3.3.1, and write a short risk assessment for one experiment using Section 6.3.2. Check local regulations and current exposure limits where the book's US-based material may differ.