Chemistry Laboratory Safety Checklist
You are required to read the following checklist and check each item only when you thoroughly understand it. Ask your instructor to clarify any points you do not understand.
____ 1. Eye protection must be worn at all times. Safety goggles are required. It is inadvisable to wear contact lenses unless absolutely necessary for eyesight correction.
____ 2. Gloves should be used when handling toxic or corrosive chemicals.
____ 3. Know the location and how to use the fire extinguisher, fire blanket, eyewash fountain, and safety shower for your lab.
____ 4. Smoking, eating, drinking, or applying cosmetics are not allowed in the lab; wash hands frequently when working with chemical substances and at the end of each lab period.
____ 5. Bare feet are not allowed in the lab. Long hair should be tied back. Special care should be taken to keep hair and beards away from flames, especially when lighting burners and taking melting points.
____ 6. Never use an open flame in the vicinity of flammable substances.
____ 7. Always add boiling chips before heating a liquid.
____ 8. Never heat a system having no vent to the air.
____ 9. Keep your face away from the opening of the vessel when mixing reagents, when applying heat to a reaction mixture, or when testing for an odor.
____10. Never point a vessel toward your face or toward another person, especially when it is being heated.
____11. Evaporate solvents in the fume hood.
____12. Always use a pipette bulb when pipetting.
____13. Clamp all apparatus firmly, especially when heating, cooling, or performing vacuum filtration.
____14. When inserting glass tubing into stoppers, lubricate the glass with glycerine and wrap the tubing in a towel to protect your hands if it should break.
____15. Keep water out of oil baths; violent spattering results
____16. Unlabeled containers of chemicals are not to be stored in your locker. Labels should include description of the contents (compound name) and a page reference to your lab notebook.
____17. All reagents and solvents are to be returned to their proper places immediately when no longer in use. Unused material should be placed into a proper disposal container.
____18. Only evacuate round-bottom flasks or thick-walled filter flasks. Never evacuate normal erlenmeyer flasks, even with an aspirator.
____19. At the end of each lab period, clear your counter-top and wipe with a damp paper towel. Clean up all spills promptly. Mercury spills (even a broken thermometer) or major spills of acids or bases are to be reported immediately to the instructor.
____20. Find out the hazards of each experiment, by carefully reading the lab book or handout for the experiment, and by consulting your instructor, before you begin work.
____21. The campus emergency phone number is 9911. This number may be used to report fires, summon an ambulance or the police.
____22. Written permission is needed to be in the laboratories at times other than your regularly scheduled lab. Even with written permission, there must be at least two students in the laboratory and an instructor must be within hearing distance.
Origin of hazards: Unexpected and possibly dangerous situations can result from one or more of the following:
(Cut at the dotted line and hand in the signed portion of this page to the Stockroom).
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I have read and understood all of the foregoing safety precautions.
_________________________________ _____________ ____________
signature/ locker number/ date