Ralph's recent post has reminded me about a question I wanted to ask about flammables.

We have a very old (2004) standard:

AS/NZS 2243.10:2004 : Safety in laboratories - Storage of chemicals

That OHS central use as gospel. It does not differentiate disciplines but states 'definitively' that maximum load of solvents is 250L within a 10m radius...even if in DG cabinets and 10L total in the open per lab.

And 'empties' (winchesters, etc) are counted as full while they are still in the lab!

I have tried to search and the best I get is an NFPA (US) 2015 document that if I am reading correctly states 150L / 9.3 M2 without the distance limit. Don't have the whole thing so I may be missing something.

Our labs are around 60M2, loaded with DG cabinets, thermal detectors, fire extinguishers (with training), sprinklers, all graduate chemistry students / post docs, etc.

As you can probably appreciate these limits are close to impossible in a high powered synthetic chemistry lab.

Or has someone found a way?

Comments, suggestions greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Paul