Department of Chemistry

Appendix on Safety in the Senior Thesis

Required Appendix on Safety Considerations to be included in Undergraduate Independent Study Theses

 

Content of an Appendix on Safety. The appendix on safety should include  assessments of the chemical, physical, and biological hazards involved in the research project and the steps taken to mitigate these hazards.

Chemical hazards. Assessment includes health, fire, reactivity, and contact hazards associated with all the chemicals used in the research project. The steps taken to minimize risks include the use of appropriate personal protective equipment and use of standard operating procedures usually provided by the research director. The recommended format for summarizing chemical hazards and their mitigations is a table such as that shown below. An Excel file already formatted can be downloaded here.

Chemical	CAS RN	Health	Fire	Reactivity	Contact	Personal Protective Equipment	Standard Operating Procedure

Table 1. Summary of chemical hazards and mitigations. Numerical codes used to indicate the extent of the hazard are: 0 = no known hazard, 1 = slight, 2 = moderate, 3 = severe, and 4 = extreme. Abbreviations used for personal protective equipment are: G = goggles, G&S = goggles and face shield, LC = lab coat, LC&A = lab coat and apron, and H = vented hood. Abbreviations used for types of gloves are: R = rubber, PVC = Polyvinyl chloride, BV = butyl viton, Nit = nitrile, Neo = neoprene.  For Standard Operating Procedure "RD" indicates that it was provided by research director. Citations (author, year) are given for other sources of SOP.

 

Recommended sources of information for completing the table of chemical hazards are as follows.

http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/MSDS/msds.htm  provides links to sources of over 3.5 million Material Safety Data Sheets and an explanation of contents of MSDS.
http://www.esd.uga.edu/chem/pub/saftdata.pdf for SAF-T-DATA on 1500 substances.
http://www.showabestglove.com/site/products/WhatsTheBestGloveForMe.aspx for recommendations of specific glove types.
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/labsafetymanual/appc.htm List of high acute toxicity chemicals.
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/labsafetymanual/appa.htm List of Particularly hazardous substances.
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/labsafetymanual/sec7j.htm Suggestions for working with particularly hazardous substances.
(http://www.mbigloballabcatalog.com/WebProject.asp?CodeId=7.3.1.5#) for information concerning the SAF-T-DATA hazard system.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/index.cfm , chapters 8 and 9 for chemical hazards.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/appendixj.cfm for peroxide forming chemicals.

Physical Hazards. Assessment includes hazards associated with all the equipment and instruments used in the research project such as glassware, sharps, electrical equipment, electrophoresis devices, computer work stations, ergonomics (musculoskeletal effects from routine work in a fixed position - esp. long time standing, overexertion while moving or otherwise handling bulky and heavy pieces of equipment, package of chemicals, etc., eye strain from work with optical and electron microscopes, telescopic manipulators, computer screens, work in dark or semi-dark rooms, hand activity level, lifting, backcare), ionising radiation (alpha, beta, gamma, X-ray), non-ionising radiation (electric fields, infrared, microwave, magnetic fields, radio frequency, static electricity), noise (including infrasound, ultrasound), vibration (hand-arm, whole-body), electromagnetic radiation (ultraviolet, visible, microwave - including lasers at all operating frequencies), high/low pressures (compressed gases, vacuums, etc.), high/low temperatures (furnaces/ovens, oil baths, heating mantles, open flames, hotplates, heat guns, autoclaves, refrigerators and freezers, cryogenics), centrifuges, glove boxes, rotary evaporators, stirring and mixing devices, etc. The steps taken to minimize risks include the use of appropriate personal protective equipment and use of standard operating procedures usually provided by the research director.
The recommended format for summarizing physical hazards and their mitigations is a table such as that shown below.

An Excel file already formatted can be downloaded here.

Equipment	Hazard	Personal Protective Equipment	Standard Operating Procedure

Table 2. Summary of physical hazards and mitigations. Abbreviations used for personal
protective equipment are: G = goggles, G&S = goggles and face shield, LC = lab coat, LC&A = lab coat and apron, and H = vented hood. Abbreviations used for types of gloves are: R = rubber, PVC = Polyvinyl chloride, BV = butyl viton, Nit = nitrile, Neo = neoprene.  For Standard Operating Procedure "RD" indicates that it was provided by research director. Citations (author, year) are given for other sources of SOP.

 

Recommended sources of information for completing the table of physical hazards are as follows.

http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/medresearch/medsp/includes/32PhysicalHazards.pdf for physical hazards.
http://www.wwu.edu/ehs/lab_safety/physical.shtml for physical safety.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/index.cfm , chapter 16 for physical hazards.
http://safety.dri.edu/LabSafety/Appendix_F.pdf for physical hazards.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/index.cfm , chapter 14 for radiological hazards.
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/laserguide/index.htm Laser safety guide.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/index.cfm , chapter 15 for laser hazards.
http://140.194.76.129/publications/armytm/tm5-801-10/app-b.pdf radiological hazards.
https://research.uiowa.edu/ehs/files/documents/chemsafety/labppetool.doc  for information concerning radiological hazards.
http://www.epa.gov/oswer/riskassessment/ragsa/pdf/ch10.pdf for information concerning radiological hazards.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/ch16.cfm#16.15 for ergonomics.
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/ehs/workplacesafety/ergonomics.htm
for information on ergonomics.

Biological hazards (biohazards). Assessment includes hazards associated with microorganisms, fungi, viruses or toxins (from a biological source) that can enter a human body by way of inhalation, ingestion, skin or eye contact, transmission by laboratory animal bites or stings, or accidental injection. The steps taken to minimize risks include the use of appropriate personal protective equipment and use of standard operating procedures usually provided by the research director.
The recommended format for summarizing physical hazards and their mitigations is a table such as that shown below. An Excel file already formatted can be downloaded here.

Biological Entity	Hazard	Personal Protective Equipment	Standard Operating Procedure

Table 3. Summary of biological hazards and mitigations. Abbreviations used for personal protective equipment are: G = goggles, G&S = goggles and face shield, LC = lab coat, LC&A = lab coat and apron, and H = vented hood. Abbreviations used for types of gloves are: R = rubber, PVC = Polyvinyl chloride, BV = butyl viton, Nit = nitrile, Neo = neoprene.  For Standard Operating Procedure "RD" indicates that it was provided by research director. Citations (author, year) are given for other sources of SOP.

Recommended sources of information for completing the table of biological hazards are as follows.

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/msds-ftss/index-eng.php Links provided by Canadian health authorities to MSDS forms for infectious substances.
http://www.wwu.edu/ehs/biological_safety/lab.shtml biological safety.
https://research.uiowa.edu/ehs/files/documents/chemsafety/labppetool.doc  for information concerning biological hazards.
www.slh.wisc.edu/dotAsset/17819.doc for information on performing a risk assessment for laboratory biosafety.
http://www.ehs.cornell.edu/lrs/manual/index.cfm , chapter 13 for bio- hazards.

Suggested Content of Appendix in the student report. The appendix should contain the applicable tables of hazards with explanations of abbreviations, a general statement about the sources of information used by the student to construct the tables (usually MSDS), and a statement about using the information from the tables to design all experiments carried out in the research project.

If any SOP is used from a source other than the Research Director, the source must be cited in the table using the (author, year) style and a separate sheet entitled "Cited Sources" should be added that contains the bibliographic information for the source. This can be a print out of a separate EndNote file in alpha order by last name of first author. 

If a table is not applicable, the report should so indicate, e.g., "no biological hazards". Such hazards obviously vary from project to project; for example, a chemical or biological hazards section might well be unnecessary for a computational chemistry thesis, although some discussion about ergonomics would be appropriate.