Bad day in chemistry class

[CubeMage128]

Well, seeing as my friends and I are really careful, we really haven't gotten in too much trouble in chemistry...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, one of the first days we were handling hydrochloric acid, my friend accidently spilled a tiny drop on my wrist. The teacher went ballistic, and started throwing handfulls of baking soda at my hand.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was more embarrassing than harmful, though.

[Devilsdragon]

I knew a guy who got expelled for showing some explosive chemical to his chem teacher

[trapical]

Hydrochloric and sugar shouldn't produce enough poisonous fumes that would deem the evacuation of a school unless you're mixing like gallons of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for me? Well I was a Chem major and am in my fifth full year of Chemistry, but so far nothing too deadly. Although my Quantitative analysis professor set the lab on fire last semester. We were in lab and he was boiling 500 mils of a reagent in the vent hood. We left the room to take notes as it was warming up and we hear a muffled boom from next door. He looks over and says "ah crap it blew. Jon grab the fire extinguisher." There were a dozen of us or so and we jog over to see the vent hood ablaze and some broken glass on the floor. The vent hood was made of Plexiglases and was shatterproof but the container pretty much disintegrated all over the place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That wasn't my doing though. I'v done lots of minor things, now days when working with 18 Molar sulfuric acid I'll often notice my fingers get slippery and I just shrug and wash them off, no harm done. My personal favorite acid I ever used was a 23 Molar Nitric acid. Ask your chemistry teachers about something that strong. I used it once with my professor standing behind me in my time doing research with him. It came in a 20mL bottle and was over a hundred dollars, when first opened the bottle (we were wearing masks and working in a vent hood) a piece of litmus paper lying on the table 2 feet away turned red instantly from the fumes :-s. The stuff was thick like molasses and actually dissovled the pipet I was using the second I put it in the container. My prof laughed and went a got a this thick Pyrex one. Using that I had to put a drop on this amino acid sample but as soon as I did the think smoked like dry ice for a good 30 seconds. : /

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But yea, like I said, nowadays if my lab partner or I ever get a "measly" 18 molar sulfuric on our skin for a few seconds or something we don't even really feel the need to mention it. That being said, if you are scared of lab chemicals stay out of Biology! I mean jeez I even get worried sometimes. To stain our DNA gels for UV spectroscopy in Genetics we have to use Ethidium Bromide. Nasty stuff, as wikipedia says "Ethidium bromide is a very strong mutagen, and may possibly be a carcinogen ... even latex gloves offer little protection from ethidium bromide" Yea, it's not fun. We have to triple glove on the days that we use it and the head professor is the only one that hands out the premeasured samples. Simply having a drop touch your skin can cause cancer and inhalation and (god forbid) ingestion are fatal. It scares the bejesus out of us, after lab everyone washes their hands like 6 times and we all have separate pencils and notebooks that we just leave in the genetics lab. While all the other labs in the building are used for studying in or for lectures, no one goes in the genetics lab since there might be residual Ethidium bromide somewhere that you might touch by accident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something to look foward to college bound science majors :D

[warri0r45]

Hydrochloric and sugar shouldn't produce enough poisonous fumes that would deem the evacuation of a school unless you're mixing like gallons of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As for me? Well I was a Chem major and am in my fifth full year of Chemistry, but so far nothing too deadly. Although my Quantitative analysis professor set the lab on fire last semester. We were in lab and he was boiling 500 mils of a reagent in the vent hood. We left the room to take notes as it was warming up and we hear a muffled boom from next door. He looks over and says "ah crap it blew. Jon grab the fire extinguisher." There were a dozen of us or so and we jog over to see the vent hood ablaze and some broken glass on the floor. The vent hood was made of Plexiglases and was shatterproof but the container pretty much disintegrated all over the place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That wasn't my doing though. I'v done lots of minor things, now days when working with 18 Molar sulfuric acid I'll often notice my fingers get slippery and I just shrug and wash them off, no harm done. My personal favorite acid I ever used was a 23 Molar Nitric acid. Ask your chemistry teachers about something that strong. I used it once with my professor standing behind me in my time doing research with him. It came in a 20mL bottle and was over a hundred dollars, when first opened the bottle (we were wearing masks and working in a vent hood) a piece of litmus paper lying on the table 2 feet away turned red instantly from the fumes :-s. The stuff was thick like molasses and actually dissovled the pipet I was using the second I put it in the container. My prof laughed and went a got a this thick Pyrex one. Using that I had to put a drop on this amino acid sample but as soon as I did the think smoked like dry ice for a good 30 seconds. : /

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But yea, like I said, nowadays if my lab partner or I ever get a "measly" 18 molar sulfuric on our skin for a few seconds or something we don't even really feel the need to mention it. That being said, if you are scared of lab chemicals stay out of Biology! I mean jeez I even get worried sometimes. To stain our DNA gels for UV spectroscopy in Genetics we have to use Ethidium Bromide. Nasty stuff, as wikipedia says "Ethidium bromide is a very strong mutagen, and may possibly be a carcinogen ... even latex gloves offer little protection from ethidium bromide" Yea, it's not fun. We have to triple glove on the days that we use it and the head professor is the only one that hands out the premeasured samples. Simply having a drop touch your skin can cause cancer and inhalation and (god forbid) ingestion are fatal. It scares the bejesus out of us, after lab everyone washes their hands like 6 times and we all have separate pencils and notebooks that we just leave in the genetics lab. While all the other labs in the building are used for studying in or for lectures, no one goes in the genetics lab since there might be residual Ethidium bromide somewhere that you might touch by accident.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Something to look foward to college bound science majors :D

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sounds like some things I can look forward to. :lol: I started a science degree last week, it's a 3 year course.

[assassin_696]

We left the room to take notes as it was warming up and we hear a muffled boom from next door. He looks over and says "ah crap it blew. Jon grab the fire extinguisher."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Haha :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks to health and safety nowadays nothing really exciting goes on in chemistry anymore, which my astronomy teacher frequently laments about (he has at some point during his career taught chemistry, physics, maths, english and philosophy :shock: ).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I did spill some hydrochloric acid on my hand a while ago, it wasn't very strong but I felt a slight tingling, nothing to worry about though. Dealing with acids doesn't bother me, that Ethidium Bromide might though. :|

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But, i'm doing chemistry next year for AS level, hopefully some more exciting stuff might go on.

[Guy]

hmmm, well last year my science teacher deceded we would mix sugar and hydrocloric acid? (i think it was hydrochloric). long story short, she "forgot" that the reaction produced a poisonous gas, and we had to evacuate a building of 700-some people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ROFL!! That's SERIOUSLY funny :P

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~Guy

[Abyssalwhip]

Nitroglycerin + gasoline + oil+ gunpowder + :thumbsup: fire =

[trapical]

Nitroglycerin + gasoline + oil+ gunpowder + :thumbsup: fire =

 

 

 

Nitroglycerin in a High school? That's a class 4 restricted chemical in Wisconsin. It's as explosive as TNT but goes off with the slightest bump. It's more like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nitroglycerin + an elbow bump = Fiery death. :wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never seen it explode but it was a byproduct of a reaction we did in Org-Chem. The prof was like "please label which container you put your waste in and bring it over to the vent hood when you're done. If you let it sit for more then an hour nitroglycerin can accumulate and then the next day when I walk over to pick some unlabeled beaker off a table it might explode. And that's why tomorrow is the day of the year my wife hates the most, ha ha"

[Will H]

a year ago, someone stole hydrochloric acid(or the one that explodes with water) and had a vial of it in his pocket, somehow someon ending up spilling water on it and it blew off a chunk of his leg and his football scholarship. :lol:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sound more like caesium to me. You keep them in vials, and it blows up when exposed to water. I doubt hydrochloric acid blows up, i've used it and never seen the explosive symbol. Just the corrosive one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a guy in school who got his shirt on fire because he leaned over a bunsen burner (idiot lol) and his parents tried to sue the school for negligence. I think they won as well. Shows our compensation culture nowadays...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once, my friend (we were working as partners) accidentally touched a metal clamp which held a tube of boiling water, and got his hand burnt. The funny thing was that I did the same thing at the end of the lesson. It was kinda embarassing...as well as painful. #-o

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I always get scared when I hold corrosives or irritants, and tbh that makes it all the more dangerous...

[anonimu]

 

hmmm, well last year my science teacher deceded we would mix sugar and hydrocloric acid? (i think it was hydrochloric). long story short, she "forgot" that the reaction produced a poisonous gas, and we had to evacuate a building of 700-some people.

 

 

 

Can someone please tell me what that equation is? The "poisonous gas" is probably chlorine, so the best I could do is (my school doesn't do much chemistry or physics until 10th and 11th (I'm in 9.7th)):

 

 

 

2HCl + C6H12O6 -> Cl2 + 4H2O + 6CH + O2

 

 

 

Trapical, can you please tell me if the equation is right or correct it if it's not?

[trapical]

 

 

hmmm, well last year my science teacher deceded we would mix sugar and hydrocloric acid? (i think it was hydrochloric). long story short, she "forgot" that the reaction produced a poisonous gas, and we had to evacuate a building of 700-some people.

 

 

 

Can someone please tell me what that equation is? The "poisonous gas" is probably chlorine, so the best I could do is (my school doesn't do much chemistry or physics until 10th and 11th (I'm in 9.7th)):

 

 

 

2HCl + C6H12O6 -> Cl2 + 4H2O + 6CH + O2

 

 

 

Trapical, can you please tell me if the equation is right or correct it if it's not?

 

 

 

Sure. When I first read your original post I assumed it to be correct, but now that I look at it you made a common mistake: there is more then one kind of "sugar".

 

 

 

C6-H12-O6 is glucose, the sugar energy of the human body.

 

 

 

C12-H22-O11 is sucrose, table sugar, and the kind probably used in the aforementioned experiment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually, now that I look at it again... I'm not sure if anything would even happen. 99% of the time when HCl reacts with something you get hydrogen gas and a chloride of something in solution. For example if you add Mg to HCl you get Hydrogen gas and MgCl solid. I do actually have a bottle of 16 M Sulfuric acid in my room (it's a long story), so if anyone really wants to check this I can add it to some sugar and observe. Personally though, I doubt anything will happen.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-The ICSC (international chemical safety card) for HCL says nothing of Cl2 gas unless it is anhydrous (a dry powder) and you heat it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-HCl is found in your digestive tract to help with digestion of proteins. If you consume sugar you don't produce chlorine, ;)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*EDIT* I got curious and performed the experiment with a concentrated sulfuric acid. Granted, it's not hydrochloric acid, but I believe similar results would occur.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I added three drops to a tablespoon of sugar.

 

 

 

-No known gasses were produced (Chlorine gas has a very strong order, and I'v been around Hydrogen gas long enough to recognize it)

 

 

 

-A little heat was given off

 

 

 

-The area where the acid lay first turned yellow, then greenish, then orange, then black. At this point it began to smell like burnt sugar and upon probing with a knife the sugar in these areas was rock hard, much like sugar burned by temperature.

[games_sneak]

Once we were doing an experiment heating some powder stuff and testing what gas it produced. So the powder turned to a black liquid and the teacher came over and told us off, because we had heated it for too long. SO he went to move the bunsen burner and the the end of the test tube (which was suspended above the flame by a stand and clamp) cracked spilling the boiling black liquid all over his hand. I think he had to go to hospital, I felt really bad about that.

[das1330]

Hydrochloric and sugar shouldn't produce enough poisonous fumes that would deem the evacuation of a school unless you're mixing like gallons of it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

well, there was a total of 26 seprate people all doing the same thing, and im in 7th grade so they werent taking any chances

[ry_darrick]

Im not certain about this, but I seem to remember doing the sugar and HCl experiment, dont actually remeber the equation anymore and for some reason seem to think that one of the products was pure carbon, which would be the black solid in that picture. Like I said I really cant remember though so will probably be wrong.

[Abyssalwhip]

 

Nitroglycerin + gasoline + oil+ gunpowder + :thumbsup: fire =

 

 

 

Nitroglycerin in a High school? That's a class 4 restricted chemical in Wisconsin. It's as explosive as TNT but goes off with the slightest bump. It's more like:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nitroglycerin + an elbow bump = Fiery death. :wink:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have never seen it explode but it was a byproduct of a reaction we did in Org-Chem. The prof was like "please label which container you put your waste in and bring it over to the vent hood when you're done. If you let it sit for more then an hour nitroglycerin can accumulate and then the next day when I walk over to pick some unlabeled beaker off a table it might explode. And that's why tomorrow is the day of the year my wife hates the most, ha ha"

Well obviously we can't get any ( It would be fun, Also something cool to do is light the end of a long piece of wood (something goes on the end i forgot what) then you keep a hydrogen filled balloon AWAY FROM YOU and hit the balloon with the lit wooden pole thing and it makes a cool explosion.

[TokyoPolice]

My chem teacher set the ceiling on fire.

[Ambassadar]

In Chemistry lab I never had anything more than a little diluated spilled Sulphuric acid on my hand. No big deal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One thing that was funny though is in one of my Freshman level Chemistries our lab TA was Chinese and must have been pretty new to the country. For a class of 50 students he tries to read the roll, gives up on the names after about 1 or 2 since he can't pronounce them and starts reading our Social Security numbers out loud to the entire class!!! Thankfully one guy sitting up front immediately got up and pulled the roll out of his hands and read it out. That class could have been a identity thief's paradise.