Below is the text from this month’s CHAS newsletter.
- Ralph
News from ACS Division of Chemical Health & Safety
December 2022
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In this issue:
* Addressing Flame Jetting Incidents
* 2022 Peer Led Workshops Report and 2023 Plans
** Addressing Flame Jetting Incidents
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In October, a lab demonstration incident (https://www.wric.com/news/local-news/dinwiddie-high-school-incident-in-chemistry-classroom-leads-to-early-release/) at Dinwiddie High School in Virginia renewed concern in the chemistry community about the frequency of demonstrations gone awry in middle and high schools. The experiment conducted at Dinwiddie was referred to in news reports as a
“flammable liquid demonstration” which had been performed previously that day without incident. The second time it was performed, upon adding methanol to repeat the experiment, the vapor at the opening of the bottle created a flame jet, injuring four students in its path.
Several years ago, in response to such incidents both at chemistry demonstrations and in public setting, the ACS Center for Lab Safety created a webpage with information about the flame-jetting phenomenon and ways to avoid its occurrence. The informative page also contains a video with more technical details. https://institute.acs.org/lab-safety/incidents-and-accidents/flame-jetting.html
The Dinwiddie explosion was the most recent in a string of disastrous classroom demonstrations involving methanol and flames (oftenthe “rainbow” experiment (https://cen.acs.org/articles/92/i11/Safety-Alert-Rainbow-Demonstration.html) ). These demonstrations have illustrated the need for further safety education in primary, intermediate and secondary schools. Follow up reporting on this event (https://www.wtvr.com/news/local-news/dinwiddie-schools-did-not-have-osha-required-safety-officer) also pointed out the lack of an effective Chemical Hygiene program at the high school. Such a program based on the OSHA lab standard had been recommended to all high schools in Virginia by the state Department of Education
.
- Shannon Nephew and Ralph Stuart
** 2022 Peer Led Workshops Report
and 2023 Plans
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2022 marks another successful year for the ACS CHAS Peer-Led Workshops programs! These workshops are run by passionate graduate researchers engaged in a collaborative process of content and delivery development with one another and with our CHAS technical mentorship teams. A big thank you to all of our amazing graduate researcher teams!
The ACS CHAS Empowering Academic Researchers to Strengthen Safety Culture workshop was held 3 times this year via Zoom in March, June, and October. These workshops educated about 100 participants on how to start and sustain laboratory safety teams led by graduate researchers to improve the culture of safety in academic labs.
2022-2023 Workshop Leader:
Monica Nyansa, Michigan Tech University
Facilitators
Omar Leon Ruiz UCLA
Hossain Shadman Univ of Memphis
Rachel Wiley Univ of Memphis
Adelina Oronova Michigan Tech Univ
Amanda Chung UC Irvine
Moderators
Saghar Gomrok, Univ of Memphis
Dinesh Gautam, Ohio University
Hossain Shadman, Univ of Memphis
Jamiu Oyetoro, Univ of Ibadan
Christy Dyer, Univ of Memphis
Amanda Chung, UC Irvine
Popoola Olamilekan Emmanuel, Univ of Ibadan
Brady Bresnahan, Univ of Minnesota
Abhijeet Patil, Michigan Tech Univ
Christy Dyer, Univ of Memphis
Ashan Wettasinghe, Univ of Texas Dallas
Saghar Gomrok, Univ of Memphis
Srijana Pandey, Ohio University
Melissa Alfonso, Univ of Memphis
Hemanta Timsina, Univ of Arkansas
Babatunde Obadawo, Univ of Toledo
Adelina Oronova, Michigan Tech Univ
Farouq Busari, Univ of Ibadan
A new workshop in the series, ACS CHAS RAMP in the Research Lab, was developed in 2021 by Taysir Bader, Catherine Wilhelm, Kerry Betz, Whitney Hess, Haim Weizman, and Ralph Stuart. This team of graduate students, postdocs, educators, and safety professionals incorporated the ethos of the peer-led workshop approach into the development and continued management of this workshop as it grew.
In 2022, this workshop was held once by Zoom in January for MIT, once in-person in July for the University of Minnesota, and once by Zoom in November open to all who were interested. These workshops educated about 90 participants on how to implement risk management into academic research experiments using the RAMP framework.
2022-2023 Workshop Leader:
Brady Bresnahan, Univ of Minnesota
Facilitators
Hossain Shadman, Univ of Memphis
Taysir Bader, Univ of Minnesota
Catherine Wilhelm, Univ of Michigan
Kris Elbein, Univ of Minnesota
Brady Bresnahan, Univ of Minnesota
Murphi Williams, Univ of Minnesota
Rain Talosig, UC Irvine
Finally, thank you to the 2022 Mentorship Team for supporting the graduate researchers running these workshops!
* Tilak Chandra
* Amanda Chung
* Marta Gmurczyk
* Dwayne Henry
* Elizabeth Hinds
* Sara Johnson
* Mary Beth Koza
* Tammy Lutz-Rechtin
* Jessica Martin
* Calla McCulley
* Kali Miller
* Shannon Nephew
* Sammye Sigmann
* Catherine Situma
* Ralph Stuart
* Sarah Zinn
The next dates for both workshops to be held by Zoom have been scheduled and registration is OPEN at the links below! Please help us spread the word to your networks!
ACS CHAS Empowering Academic Researchers to Strengthen Safety Culture
Sunday, March 5, 2023
Follow this link for more information and to register: https://LSTWorkshopMarch2023.eventbrite.com (https://lstworkshopmarch2023.eventbrite.com/)
ACS CHAS RAMP in the Research Lab
Thursday, April 13, 2023
Follow this link for more information and to register: https://RAMPintheResearchLabApril2023.eventbrite.com (https://rampintheresearchlabapril2023.eventbrite.com/)
- Jessica Martin
Find Out More about the Division at Our Web Site (http://www.dchas.org)
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