Six good lab practices

1.  Wear your safety classes and gloves at all times.  Wear pants and closed toe shoes (even when it’s hot).  Wash your hands when leaving the lab.

Why?  You’ll put an eye out.  Literally.  Pants and closed toe shoes prevent chemical burns.  Washing your hands prevents contaminating other surfaces.  Plus, do you really want to eat the chemicals in the lab?  Trust me, they won’t taste too good!

2.  Label each and every reaction flask, sample vial, crystallization vial, NMR tube, or reagent bottle with your initials, notebook page number, chemical composition (or attempted reaction) and date.

Why? Unlabeled containers are dangerous because you don’t know what’s in them.  No one can use the compound, no one can figure out how to dispose of it, no one will trust a reagent that doesn’t have an “opened on” date on it, and someone might confuse your vial for his or hers.  Plus, it really annoys Lori!

3.  Before leaving EACH day, complete your notebook!  Completed notebook entries should have the date, what reaction was run, molecular weights and densities (if applicable) for each reagent, expected product with its molecular weight, actual amounts of reagents used, calculated mmols of reagents used, theoretical yield of reaction, solvent, temperature, a description of how you set it up, any color changes or precipitates noticed, time the reaction was started/ended, and any spectroscopic characterization and their conclusions.

Why?  Even the best chemist forgets what reactions they have done and what actually happened.  Even small things like color changes can be important later.  Lori’s law says that if you record things on scrap paper, the lab fairy will make that paper disappear and you will never see it again.

4.  Ask questions!  Especially ask when:

• You don’t know how to bring something in/out of the glovebox.

• You don’t know how to set up something on the schlenk or vacuum line.

• You are using a piece of unfamiliar equipment.

• You are doing a new type of NMR experiment.

• You are doing a reaction at extremely low or high temperatures.

• You haven’t used a reagent before or it says something like “Mutagen! Tetragen! Oxidant! Pyrophoric! Lachrymator! Extreme Irritant! Carcinogen!” or anything that is labeled “Store and use under nitrogen” or “keep away from water”.

•  You don’t know where the basic safety equipment (fire extinguisher, eye wash, safety shower, etc.) is.

• You have no idea what the point of what you’re doing is.

Why?  How are you going to learn?  You can seriously damage equipment or yourself by doing things improperly.  Nothing in the lab is dangerous if you know how to handle it properly! 

5.  Be on time!  Especially don’t forget when you sign up for NMR time, there is a meeting or other seminar that you’re supposed to go to, or someone has agreed to help you use/set up their equipment for your reaction.

Why?  If you sign up for instrument time and then don’t show up, you are preventing others from using it and people get annoyed.  Meetings only end on time when everyone is there on time (plus it’s rude).

6.      Be a good lab citizen!  In particular, clean up your own glassware/work area.  Replace (or tell me) empty gas cylinders, common supplies (such as paper towels), and broken glassware.  Put things back where you found them, especially glassware and chemicals. 

Why?  People will love you and want to help you and you won’t have to search for something the next time you need it.

And, most importantly, be safe and

Have Fun!!!