Lab Explosions

In the SOM explosion, lab personnel could not locate an empty nitric acid bottle in which to pour their waste nitric acid solution. The used what they thought was an empty bottle of glycerine. Unfortunately, there was sufficient residue of glycerine inside the bottle to form an explosive mixture when the acid was added. A graduate student who was in the lab when the bottle exploded suffered a severe laceration (including a severed artery) in his left arm.

In the Homewood explosion, a mixture of materials poured into a common waste bottle by different graduate students in the lab reacted to liberate a gas. Since EPA regulations require that waste containers be kept sealed when not in use, the pressure from the liberated gas eventually reached a point where the bottle ruptured. While this explosion caused minor damage to other materials in the hood and created a nice mess to clean up, no one was injured.

Policies for the use, storage, and disposal of hazardous chemicals can be found online at: http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/hse/manuals/safety_manual/indiv_sections/
hse703.pdf

The salient parts of the policy pertaining to these explosions is that individual waste streams should not be mixed together for disposal and that containers used for collecting wastes should be compatible with the material be collected.

Please call HSE at 955-5918 if you have any questions or would like assistance with managing your hazardous materials.

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