Safety in the Laboratory

We shall often stress this point in our lessons: it is essential that each one of us take all
the precautions needed to protect himself and his personal environment.
Each of the following recommendations underline an important regulation but it is only a
complement to official legal requirements or to manufacturers notices. It is essential that
you read these texts beforehand.
Precautions...
1. Know the theory of the experiment you are considering. Do not attempt anything at
random.
2. Study beforehand the physical and chemical properties of the products which you are
going to use or which are going to be produced in the course of the experiment.
3. Operators safety in the laboratory:
a. respect the safety regulations for gas, electricity, etc...
b. never eat, drink or smoke in the laboratory.
c. always wear glasses
d. wear water-proof rubber gloves which will protect you when handling acid or alkali
liquid.
e. wear asbestos gloves to handle molten liquids
f. wear asbestos gloves over the rubber gloves when handling acids or bases and hot
liquids
g. wear leather or waterproof plastic shoes; no cloth or perforated shoes
h. have a working fire-extinguisher and a container filled with cold water close at hand. If
you have an electrical heating system, make sure that the extinguisher is designed to
extinguish electrical fires.
4. Mix unknown liquids in small quantities only. Always proceed as follows: pour a small
amount of liquid in a test tube, and a little bit of the other liquid into another test tube,
close and keep the tubes away from each other. Mix the content of the two tubes slowly.
You must wear glasses when doing such an operation.
5. Never pour a cold liquid in a hot liquid and vice versa
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6. Never pour water into an acid
7. Permanent ventilation of the laboratory:
-in case of the use of a solvent
-in case of gas heating
-fume hood for dangerous gases
8. No flames during work with volatile liquids
9. The use of electrical heating is preferable during the handling of volatile liquids
10. Never smell directly from a flask, just wave a little bit of air towards your nose.
11. Do not breathe solvents such as acetone, trichlorethylene, etc... which have either an
immediate or long-term toxic and dangerous effect.
12. Do not handle metallic salts or metals without glove for some of them have toxic
effects (antimony lead, mercury, etc.) on the skin.
13. Do not breathe the dust during the grinding of a product; operate in the open air,
under a hood, or with a mask.
14. Place a wire gauze between the flask and the gas flame.
15. Never distil to dryness bodies giving peroxides: ether, acids, etc...; only water and
alcohol can be distilled to dryness.
16. An efficient protective barrier that can be used between the operator and the object
being handled is a thick sheet of plexiglass, a window or some plastic of the same kind,
mounted in a heavy frame so that it stays perfectly vertical.
In the course of the lessons, we shall attempt to warn you of any risk which might be
present in specific experiments.
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