Dear Colleagues -

Depending on the complexity of the apparatus, plastic coating is a good way to mitigate the severity of a glassware failure. If I recall, there were several local glass supply outfits (Phila area) that could do this for a reasonable fee, too.

One more thing you might want to consider if outside of containment: mitigation of chemical contamination in case of a failure. I was a researcher/lab supervisor where we had a six-footer outside of containment fail, & the person using it at the time (for high-vac sample drying) did not know they had prepared a lachrymatory solid (all of our pumps vented to exhaust by SOP). we had to clear the lab.

Hope this helps a bit!
Best regards & good luck,
Frank
Frank T. Coppo
EHS Specialist, Environment, Health, & Safety Services

GlaxoSmithKline | 1250 S. Collegeville Rd. | UP2410 | Collegeville, PA | 19426 | USA
: 1-610-917-4548 (GSK shortcode 8282-4548) mobile: 1-610-324-1419 | |: Environment, Health & Safety

From: DCHAS-L Discussion List [mailto:dchas-l**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU] On Behalf Of Kimberly Bush
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2013 9:31 AM
To: DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**MED.CORNELL.EDU
Subject: [DCHAS-L] Shielding for large vacuum-manifold?

[Multiposting. My apologies if you're seeing this in duplicate.]

Has anyone seen, developed, or researched solutions for shielding laboratory-scale vacuum manifolds for pulling high vacuum on glass vessels? This would be a large (approx. 10-foot wide) glass manifold that would not be located inside of a fume hood. We want to reduce the hazard of flying glass in the event of a glassware failure and resulting implosion.

While this particular apparatus is part of a renovation for a new research group, we have some similar equipment on our academic campus that could benefit from the same kind of solution.

Sliding panels/doors? Enclosures? Hanging blast shields? Anything like this in use?

Kimi Bush
Lab Safety Specialist
Environmental Health and Radiation Safety
University of Pennsylvania
3160 Chestnut St., Suite 400
Philadelphia, PA 19104-6287
Google Voice/cell/text: 215-360-3KIM
fax: 215-898-0140

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