/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ en-us derekb.lowe@gmail.com 2013-03-06T13:25:38-05:00 hourly 1 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2013/03/06/safety_warning_tognis_reagents.php Some of you may have used the second Togni reagent (shown) as a trifluoromethylating agent. Well, there's a new paper in Organic Process R&D that brings word that it's an explosive hazard. A group at Novasep, in Leverkusen, Germany finds... 76260@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2013-03-06T13:25:38-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/10/26/accident_report_or_one_damn_thing_after_another.php I have this from a lab-accidents-I-have-known discussion over on Reddit. It is, of course, unverified, but it's depressingly plausible. As a chemist, this one is guaranteed to make you bury your head in your hands - it's the second law... 75966@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Graduate School 2012-10-26T10:22:09-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/08/01/the_sangjiuclaharran_case_now_officially_a_mess.php There have been a number of odd developments in the Sheri Sangji case, the lab fatality at UCLA that led to criminal charges being filed against both Prof. Patrick Harran and the university. The Doing Good Science blog at Scientific... 75785@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2012-08-01T10:35:18-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/02/16/imidazole1sulfonyl_azide_hcl_look_out.php I don't know how many of you out there like to form azides, but if you do, you've probably used (or thought about using) imidazole-1-sulfonyl azide hydrochloride. This reagent appeared in Organic Letters a few years ago as a safe-to-handle... 75460@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2012-02-16T08:19:43-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2012/02/01/potassium_hydride_is_not_your_friend.php Noted chem-blogger Milkshake seems to have had a close call with a fire started by a tiny potassium hydride residue. It looks like he made it through without serious injury, but that sort of thing will definitely shake a person... 75421@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Chemical News 2012-02-01T08:26:02-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2011/12/28/the_ucla_lab_fatality_criminal_charges_filed.php Most readers here will remember the fatal lab accident at UCLA in 2009 involving t-butyllithium, which took the life of graduate student Sheri Sangji. Well, there's a new sequel to that: the professor involved, Patrick Harran, has been charged along... 75348@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2011-12-28T12:02:17-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/09/27/charges_in_the_tms_diazomethane_case.php Readers may remember the case of Ronald Daigle, who died of exposure to TMS diazomethane a couple of years ago in Nova Scotia. Sepracor, the company who owned the facility at the time, has now pleaded not guilty to five... 74687@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2010-09-27T12:05:34-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/27/how_much_is_the_pi_to_blame.php Chemjobber has a post up on the responsibility of the professor in the Texas Tech explosion case. I have to agree with him: if you're going to get grant money to have your group work on energetic materials, you have... 74641@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2010-08-27T09:12:09-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/08/24/gegen_die_dummheit_well_guess_who_wins_again.php If you haven't heard about the explosion at Texas Tech earlier this year, this piece is the place to learn about it. (More from Chemjobber and the newly re-blogging Paul Bracher). In short, two graduate students were preparing a nickel... 74636@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2010-08-24T14:05:10-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2010/06/30/how_not_to_do_it_hydrogen_gas_mixtures.php Culturing bacteria is usually a pretty quiet affair. Bacteria aren't too noisy, and the equipment used to keep them happy isn't too dangerous. But there are exceptions. If you're going to culture anaerobes, you need somewhat more advanced technique, what... 74558@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ How Not to Do It 2010-06-30T06:18:33-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/09/21/more_on_t2_and_degrees.php Friday's article on the T2 explosion has had a lot of readers, thanks to links from various outside sources. One line from it has attracted a disproportionate amount of comment - the one where I mentioned that the two owners... 74066@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2009-09-21T07:29:19-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/09/18/175_times_and_then_the_catastrophe.php I noted this item over at C&E News today, a report on a terrible chemical accident at T2 Laboratories in Florida back in 2007. I missed even hearing about this incident at the time, but it appears to have been... 74065@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Chemical News 2009-09-18T06:47:48-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/05/26/on_the_uselessness_of_the_msds.php With all the recent discussions around here about safety, I think that there's one thing that all of us working chemists can agree on: MSDSs are often the next thing to useless. They're not supposed to be, at least in... 73893@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2009-05-26T06:45:08-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/05/22/blowups_happen.php There's an article up at Slate on the UCLA lab accident death. It finishes up by saying: If Sheri Sangji's death is to mean anything, it must be that no lab chief—and certainly no federal agency—claiming to further human welfare... 73892@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2009-05-22T10:25:58-05:00 http://pipeline.corante.com/archives/2009/05/19/tms_reagents_handle_with_care.php Some emails and discussions with colleagues have raised an important point to be learned from the recent TMS-diazomethane tragedies. Many people are probably taking some of these reagents less seriously than they should. As organic chemists know, the trimethylsilyl group... 73879@/home/corante/public_html/pipeline/ Safety Warnings 2009-05-19T07:42:42-05:00