(COC) Chemistry Lab Safety and Lab Equipment Lesson

Chemistry Lab Safety and Lab Equipment

During this course, you will be required to perform various labs at your home. All of the labs will use common household products and materials.   Anything has the potential to be dangerous if used in a careless manner. Please follow basic safety guidelines when conducting chemistry laboratory exercises. Watch the following video about lab safety.

General Lab Safety Rules

  • Always follow directions. Do not perform unauthorized experiments.
  • Be alert and attentive at all times.
  • Report all accidents, injuries, and equipment breakage to the instructor immediately.
  • Use safety goggles.
  • Be able to appropriately identify and use all laboratory equipment.
  • Dress appropriately (no loose fitting clothes, no dangling jewelry, shoes should be closed-toed, long hair pulled back, and long sleeves rolled up.)
  • Clean up the lab area

Lab Safety Rules Relating Specifically to Chemistry

  • Read the Chemical Safety Information
    A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) should be available for every chemical you use in a lab. Read these and follow the recommendations for the safe use and disposal of the material. Look in the sidebar for this datasheet.
  • Don't Taste or Sniff Chemicals
    Many chemicals, if you can smell them then you are exposing yourself to a dose that can harm you! If the safety information says that a chemical should only be used inside a fume hood, then don't use it anywhere else. This isn't cooking class - don't taste your experiments!
  • Don't Casually Dispose of Chemicals Down the Drain
    Some chemicals can be washed down the drain, while others require a different method of disposal. If a chemical can go in the sink, be sure to wash it away rather than risk an unexpected reaction between chemical 'leftovers' later.
  • Do Not Pipette By Mouth - Ever
    You say, "But it's only water." Even if it is, how clean do you think that glassware really is? Using disposable pipettes? Lots of people rinse them and put them back! Learn to use the pipette bulb or automated pipetter. Don't pipette by mouth at home either. Gasoline and kerosene should be obvious, but people get hospitalized or die every year. Someone once used his mouth to start the suction on a waterbed to drain it. Do you know what they put in some waterbed additives? Carbon-14. Mmmm...radiation. He couldn't retch fast enough! The lesson is that even seemingly harmless substances may be dangerous!
  • Always pour acids into water.

If you pour water into acid, the heat of the reaction will cause the water to explode into steam, sometimes violently, and the acid will splatter.

  • Never point a test tube or any vessel that you are heating at yourself or your neighbor --it may erupt like a geyser.
  • Never leave burners unattended.

Turn them off whenever you leave your workstation. Be sure that the gas is shut off at the bench rack when you leave the lab. Also, beware of hot glass--it looks exactly like cold glass.

Mouse over the image in the activity below to identify things NOT to do in a lab.

Review the common lab equipment in the presentation below. 

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