Don't mess with organic mercury

[uclaLabrat]

It definitely depends on the gloves. In that example, assuming it was the same as what the chemist is wearing, she could have been wearing nitrile gloves which, I believe, offer very little protection for certain methylated or heavy metal compounds or what not. I'm not sure if latex (or a certain grade of latex) offers proper protection in that case or not. All of those materials represent a specific lattice of molecules arranged in a certain way and, chemistry being chemistry, can very easily be compromised when the proper molecule comes into direct contact with it. It's why you don't want to let chlorine (bleach) or EtOH come into contact with polystyrene (many of the "hard" plastics, like lucite), wheres these are perfectly fine being stored in polypropylene, a "softer" material. ...well, I'm not a chemist so I probably futzed that explanation up a bit with the plastics, but doing this wrong can certainly lead to serious consequences.

Nitrile gloves might be ok but I can't remember. Organomercury and organotin compounds are seriously bad juju.

This story was one that my PI would drill into our heads in grad school. She was a professor at dartmouth.

 

[Fritzo]

I did similar as a teenager took a thermostat mercury bulb apart and played with it. Put it in the back of my closet open and forgot about it til years later when I found the container and wondered where all the mercury went. Didn't find out until years after that mercury evaporates and its extra bad for you when you breath it in. Silly dilly dookie no wonder I'm an idiot.

Then theres the fact my dad used to let me melt hit his real lead soldier with a soldiering gun into puddles for hours in a small room when I was a lot younger. Add the two together and its no wonder I ain't quite right.

I remember doing that All while eating a fresh bowl of paint chips. Delicious!

 

[skull]

I remember doing that All while eating a fresh bowl of paint chips. Delicious!

I skipped the paint chips but used to lick telephone cords.

 

[Fritzo]

Nitrile gloves might be ok but I can't remember. Organomercury and organotin compounds are seriously bad juju.

This story was one that my PI would drill into our heads in grad school. She was a professor at dartmouth.

Sort of related (chemistry), but this story is bringing back the memory of a guy in my sophomore year of college that decided to stead a chunk of elemental sodium from the lab because of all the cool things you could do. So, he steals it by taking it out of the oil immersion jar, wrapping it in a paper towel, and PUTTING IT IN HIS POCKET. I wasn't there at the time the (literal) fireworks started, but I guess the guy was in the cafeteria and the sodium reacted to the moisture from his leg, causing flames and severe burns. From descriptions I guess it looked like a cell phone battery exploding. Made the news and everything!

 

[Captante]

my dad used to let me melt hit his real lead soldier with a soldiering gun into puddles for hours in a small room

 

[PottedMeat]

a guy in my sophomore year of college that decided to stead a chunk of elemental sodium from the lab because of all the cool things you could do. So, he steals it by taking it out of the oil immersion jar, wrapping it in a paper towel, and PUTTING IT IN HIS POCKET.

was he at least drunk or high? if he was sober how did it make it to college sophomore?

 

[skull]

Granted I didn't melt lead for hours straight, I also shorted out resistors/capacitors burned up leds and shocked myself playing with electricity.

My dad wasn't much for safety except for safety glasses. I was allowed to play with power tools fire/fireworks smash 22s with a hammer etc. all under the age of 10 but I better have been wearing my goddamn safety glasses.

 

[Fritzo]

was he at least drunk or high? if he was sober how did it make it to college sophomore?

Nope, he was just one of those "Hey, WATCH THIS!" guys waiting on the Darwin list.

 

[skull]

Funny story when I found a gun at my grandmas house. I brought it to my grandma who couldn't see very well. She couldn't figure out if it was loaded so she said watch out pointed it at the floor and pulled the trigger. Alright here you go you can play with it. For growing up in the helicopter parent 90s I had pretty good childhood. My mom was a drag on my activities but when she was away let the fun begin.

 

[crashtech]

Organometallic compounds are nothing to fool with in general. An excerpt from "Charles F. Kettering and the 1921 discovery of tetraethyl lead," a chilling account of the method Standard Oil briefly used to manufacture TEL with virtually no regard to worker safety:

As demand accelerated in the summer of 1924, du Pont stepped up the older
bromide production line from around 200 gallons per day to 400 in June,
then 500 in July, and then 700 by August. As a result, three more workers
died with wild and violent hallucinations.

The internal controversy came to a head when a delegation of du Pont
chemists led by W. F. Harrington visited Standard’s Bayway plant in September,
1924. The contrast between the du Pont approach and the Standard approach
was evident from the moment Harrington and his team walked through the door.
They saw a large, open factory floor with three main work areas. In the
first area, a large iron vessel shaped like two ice cream cones stuck top
to top was rotating on its side. From within the vessel came the muffled
sound of heavy explosions as sodium reacted violently with ethyl chloride
and lead. As the double cone rotated, steel agitation balls churned through
the boiling sodium to ensure proper mixing. When the reaction calmed down,
a crane moved the double cone to the second work area, where workers unbolted
the hatches over the narrow ends, releasing concentrated fumes from inside.
They attached steam lines and condensers, and tetraethyl lead was distilled
in much the same way that whiskey is distilled from a vat of beer.

When the distillation was over, workers opened the iron vessel once again
and scraped the steaming, leftover lead mush through a grate in the floor
with shovels, gloves and boots. As the mush went through the grate, workers
recovered the steel balls that would be used to agitatethe next batch.

The du Pont engineers were “greatly shocked at the manifest danger
of the equipment and methods [and] at inadequate safety precautions,”
but their warnings were “waved aside.”

http://www.environmentalhistory.org/billkovarik/about-bk/research/cabi/ket-tel/#troubles