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My high school teacher in chemistry was a bit of an original. Dedicated and ambitious, and maybe a little bit crazy. In our 2nd and 3rd year we did quite 'seri

My high school teacher in chemistry was a bit of an original. Dedicated and ambitious, and maybe a little bit crazy. In our 2nd and 3rd year we did quite 'serious' organic synthesis labs, including bromination of benzene, which of course included elemental bromine. The teacher did ration it out in out small stoppered round bottom flasks, but then we all did the synthesis in teams of two/three. He was still very serious on security, and I guess his main reason for including that lab was to make sure that all his students had understood the seriousness of chemical dangers. If you had done anything even slightly out of line in any lab, but especially that one, you would absolutely have been sent home, and probably been advised that maybe experimental organic chemistry wasn't for you. Right or wrong, but that's the story about how I got to work with elemental bromine in high school at the age of 16 or 17.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
fuzzfactor 7y ago
It can be an interesting head start at a young age. I went to experimental school having more progressive and well equipped labs than supposedly others at the time. Everything was new and advanced, we were the guinea pigs. Not toxically by any intention, just behaviorally for the most part. I got to the university early and had excellent professors, ended up interning when I was 20 at a leading research fluorochemical and silicochemical plant that had been a startup from one of them years earlier. By the time I got there they had a fluorine trailer on site, at times the only live one in North America back then, so "no insurance for you". We stocked experimental silanes, silazanes, fluoromonomers, and things like fluorides of xenon in the main chemical room if they were under a few kilos. Osmium tetroxide too, but only a few grams. But there was another building with the real nasty stuff on the shelves, where every single one of them was something most chemists would never want to see the bottle open. Especially if they were the poor soul that had to do it the previous time. Too bad a lot of the compounds would eat through the bottle cap within a faily predictable period of months or years according to the material, so somebody was going in there fairly regularly to accomplish cap replacement as needed anyway. You could tell when something was coming out more agressively than normal when you walked by the building. It was easy to smell since it was built with the cinder blocks turned sideways for ventilation, just like the numerous systhesis labs scattered safe distances from each other, all far from the heavy concrete blast embankment which faced off into the woods. Only the labs didn't have actual doors in their four doorways. It didn't go without saying that 4 ways out still might not be enough for a single chemist, and you can't have any obstacles in your way. Firefighting training included extinguishment through the flow-through walls into the dummy lab from the outside, which was just a lab that had gone out of control but not been completely destroyed. The agressive chemical storage had secure doors but it was still gagging you with its smell-through open walls. How much worse could it get to actually go inside? Well there was the thiophosgene. You think plain phosgene is bad, this is not your everyday phosgene. It was rough, once you got to know it, largely seemed like one of the main stench culprits. The bottle stayed in the room, measurement was done right there. You had to put on a disposable suit to protect you from the outer suit which was assumed to be contaminated from previous tasks. Full face respirator and shield, rubber boots and spats, multiple glove layers to open the crate, dig into the vermiculite for the can, open with sparkproof tools, dig into more vermiculite for the bottle of ugly red liquid its damn self. Any access to thiophosgene called for full replacement of the bottle cap, can, crate, and vermiculite, so it could hopefully be left alone as long as possible undisturbed afterward. Once opened and repacked, that room smelled about ten times worse than normal for a couple weeks even though the thiophosgene was sealed up like that. Anyway, I have lived by my teenage decision but accept it as immature, I don't recommend such toxic or dangerous work to others and carry on partially because I want to use any unfair advantage for myself & others to handle risky things more responsibly or not at all.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

fuzzfactor 7y ago

It can be an interesting head start at a young age. I went to experimental school having more progressive and well equipped labs than supposedly others at the time. Everything was new and advanced, we were the guinea pigs. Not toxically by any intention, just behaviorally for the most part. I got to the university early and had excellent professors, ended up interning when I was 20 at a leading research fluorochemical and silicochemical plant that had been a startup from one of them years earlier. By the time I got there they had a fluorine trailer on site, at times the only live one in North America back then, so "no insurance for you". We stocked experimental silanes, silazanes, fluoromonomers, and things like fluorides of xenon in the main chemical room if they were under a few kilos. Osmium tetroxide too, but only a few grams. But there was another building with the real nasty stuff on the shelves, where every single one of them was something most chemists would never want to see the bottle open. Especially if they were the poor soul that had to do it the previous time. Too bad a lot of the compounds would eat through the bottle cap within a faily predictable period of months or years according to the material, so somebody was going in there fairly regularly to accomplish cap replacement as needed anyway. You could tell when something was coming out more agressively than normal when you walked by the building. It was easy to smell since it was built with the cinder blocks turned sideways for ventilation, just like the numerous systhesis labs scattered safe distances from each other, all far from the heavy concrete blast embankment which faced off into the woods. Only the labs didn't have actual doors in their four doorways. It didn't go without saying that 4 ways out still might not be enough for a single chemist, and you can't have any obstacles in your way. Firefighting training included extinguishment through the flow-through walls into the dummy lab from the outside, which was just a lab that had gone out of control but not been completely destroyed. The agressive chemical storage had secure doors but it was still gagging you with its smell-through open walls. How much worse could it get to actually go inside? Well there was the thiophosgene. You think plain phosgene is bad, this is not your everyday phosgene. It was rough, once you got to know it, largely seemed like one of the main stench culprits. The bottle stayed in the room, measurement was done right there. You had to put on a disposable suit to protect you from the outer suit which was assumed to be contaminated from previous tasks. Full face respirator and shield, rubber boots and spats, multiple glove layers to open the crate, dig into the vermiculite for the can, open with sparkproof tools, dig into more vermiculite for the bottle of ugly red liquid its damn self. Any access to thiophosgene called for full replacement of the bottle cap, can, crate, and vermiculite, so it could hopefully be left alone as long as possible undisturbed afterward. Once opened and repacked, that room smelled about ten times worse than normal for a couple weeks even though the thiophosgene was sealed up like that. Anyway, I have lived by my teenage decision but accept it as immature, I don't recommend such toxic or dangerous work to others and carry on partially because I want to use any unfair advantage for myself & others to handle risky things more responsibly or not at all.