Spill Prevention

Spill prevention is an extremely important safety concern in any work place.  In the lab, spill prevention is particular critical because of the nature of the work being done.  Many accidents have resulted from dangerous chemicals being spilled or knocked over in the lab.  There are countless possible results when chemicals are spilled in the lab.  Anywhere from employee exposure to infectious diseases, to explosions.  Almost all accidents in the lab can be prevented through proper training, and proper safety measures taken by employees that work in the lab. 

Spill prevention is something I deal with extremely frequently at my job as an Environmental Technician here at Ohio University.  Although I do work with spill prevention is labs, I mainly work with the risk of petroleum hydrocarbons becoming entrained in the storm water system. However often times I am working in labs, and I even encounter spills occasionally.  This is dangerous because most of the time you don’t really know what exactly has been spilled.  Sometimes a chemical will be spilled on metal shelving and will eat the paint off the shelving or actually eat threw the shelve.  There are some very simple but effective ways to prevent spills.  First and foremost, simply making sure the cap is secured tight is the most effective way to prevent a spill.  This is what I run into most often at my job, sometimes caps will be just set on top of the bottle opposed to screwed on.  But a spill does not have to actually involve something getting knocked over.  Many times a container is not fit to hold the chemical put into it.  If a chemical is acidic, basic, or corrosive it can eat threw the container and spill onto another surface. 

Strong acids that have the capability to do this are usually stored in shatterproof glass containers.  This is so that in the scenario the container is dropped, it will not break open and cause a spill.  To reduce the magnitude of spills, laboratories are required to only keep the amount of chemical they will need in a reasonable amount of time.  This is to discourage labs from stock piling large amounts of hazardous chemicals.  Secondary containment is also an encouraged process.  This means dangerous chemicals are to be kept in a secondary tub of sorts, so in the event of a primary container failure, the tub would hold the chemical.  The composition of these tubs should be kept in consideration.  If a strong acid enters the tub, it is basically useless if it will only eat threw the secondary containment too.  Something I need to consider when I store these containers is the other chemicals in the tub.  An even bigger problem can be potentially created if the chemical enters the tub, and eats away at other containers.  In this scenario, you can have a very dangerous reaction take place.  This can result in fire, toxic gas release, etc.  While spill prevention may seem like a simple concept, there are many different methods to reduce accidental release.