FYI, there’s an interesting preprint of an article on lab accidents in Korea from the Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Republic of Korea at the URL below. It discusses a 6 year history of lab accident reports in South Korea as required by national legislation there.
- Ralph
Analysis of Chemical Accidents in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Laboratories in Korea
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4330166
Kim, Jong Gu and Jo, Han Jin and Jeon, Hyung Jun and Chung, Seong Pil and Hong, Jin Hyuk and Lee, Ju Hyuk and Lee, Hwang Won and Roh, Young Hee, Analysis of Chemical Accidents in Chemistry/Chemical Engineering Laboratories in Korea. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4330166 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4330166
Chemical safety in chemistry/chemical engineering laboratories is important because the hazards and risks (toxicity, flammability, and explosiveness) to a person or property are the same as those in industries. While there has been research on preventing laboratory accidents, it mostly focused on one laboratory/institution or used informal and limited accident databases. This is the first study to statistically analyze all chemical laboratory accidents in South Korea during 2015–2021 to examine the relationship between accident types, accident causes, damage types, and damaged areas. The data included accidents with injury requiring treatment for more than three days, in accordance with the standards of the Act on the Establishment of Safe Laboratory Environment. Frequency analysis was conducted on the current status of each variable, and a cross-tabulation analysis identified the associations between them. The results identified 1,380 laboratory accidents with 342 chemist!
ry/chemical engineering accidents, a number that had doubled from 2015 to 2021. Chemical accidents were categorized as fires, explosions, and spills according to accident type; spills had the highest frequency (69.0%) and were mostly caused by inadequate handling of chemicals (62.5%). Most explosions (62.2%) and fires (52.2%) were caused by abnormal/runaway reactions. Burn damage was high in all accident types, especially spills (76.1%). The face was damaged highly in all accident types, and explosions damaged multiple areas. Based on the results, several safety management measures are proposed to prevent/reduce spills, explosions, fires, and damage. The results can help researchers develop new protective technologies to ensure safety in chemistry/chemical engineering laboratories.
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