Laboratory Storage
2009
 |
| No items matching your keywords were found. |
Laboratory Storage
Safety Tips For Storing Flammable & Explosive Substances in Your Laboratory Refrigerator
Laboratory refrigerators are appliances as well. No matter how much care you take of them, it can sometimes never be enough. Considering the volatile nature of substances that are sometimes stored in laboratory refrigerators, you can never be too careful. For starters, one has to follow the basic safety protocol prescribed for these fridges. That means placing the fridges where there is ample ventilation and away from exit points. Also chemicals have to be placed in secondary containers that are unbreakable.
There is no fool-proof method of ventilation of fumes that arise from chemicals stored in the laboratory fridge. Thus if left unattended to for long that can get absorbed into the insulation of the fridge. This allows for toxic as well as explosive fumes to accumulate in the fridge at time. The danger posed is often to the person who opens the fridge to search for a sample. Highly toxic substances are not meant to be stored in laboratory but if you are doing so then it is mandatory that you label the fridge clearly on the contents.
It is advisable for those with access to the fridge to keep it open for only the time that is required. If some substances are exposed to external temperatures for long periods of time, they can explode or give out fumes. This is extremely dangerous both in terms of explosion hazard as well as physical danger to the persons involved. Another reason why dangerous fumes can arise is when there is no fixed mechanism in place to kick in when there is a power outage. Change in temperatures can also render some substances equally volatile.
When storing flammable substances, this has to be done only in refrigerators that have an underwriters-approval from the manufacturer. If this is not possible, make sure that there are no chances of any ignition triggers being present in the fridge. If you are using a manual defrost fridge, then you will have to make some alterations like removing the internal light and its control mechanisms from the door frame. Contact points of the temperature and fan thermostat have to be moved to the outside. Steer clear of frost-free refrigerators as these have a water outlet leading to the outside. The heating coils that are present can also lead to the generation of a spark.
Labeling is an essential part of the process to reduce the potential hazards of using laboratory refrigerators. The fridge has to be labeled on the outside on what purpose it is serving. If it contains volatile substances it has to be clearly mentioned. All chemical containers have to be clearly labeled with water-proof pens to avoid it being washed off. The secondary storage containers used have to be corrosion proof. All chemicals have to have stoppers that are of a prescribed material. If not, the potential hazards are plenty.
Laboratory refrigerators work to the optimum only where they have been geared to do so. A lot of care and a systematic protocol in place are needed to ensure this.
About the Author
Dr. Sandor is a Director at Tovatech, a leading supplier of laboratory refrigerator units. When not busy running his company he explores his fascination with the many aspects of various scientific & industrial devices. For more details on the above you can reach him through the lab & industrial refrigerator section of his site.
Is a cd-server or a cd-tower something that is already obsolete technology?
We would like to renew our language laboratory at our language school so students can enjoy practicing their EFL skills in a better way. However, I found myself in crossroads. I really do not know what would be the best hardware to use. I have also heard about NAS (Network Attached Storage). Is this the replacement of the cd-server? How does it work?
I'm sure there are still some practical applications for CD Jukeboxes, however if what you need is storage space for your laboratory files, then hard drives are the way to go.
You can either pick up a NAS appliance, which is basically an appliance with hard drives, network cards, a raid controller and a small application layer and web access for configuration.
The NAS is connected to your network, and the files can be accessed from your computer workstations with a supported protocol, such as windows file sharing.
Alternatively, instead of an appliance, you could install hard drives into a simple computer, and install an Operating System and File Sharing software.
The advantages of using a NAS appliance over a custom built file-sharing computer, are that it is much easier to set up, has built-in RAID (make sure you select raid 1, 5 or 10 for your data protection), and generally they are less demanding on space and electricity demands.
If performance and protection of your data are critical, you should invest in a SAN (storage-area network)rather than NAS.
Andra lab researches storage of nuclear waste
