Whether you are fresh-faced and ready to become the next Rutherford or a lab-weary third-year, labs are a right of passage for all STEM students. Rookie errors are inevitable, with a dropped test tube or spilt chemical being commonplace, but some mistakes are much worse than others. We’ve found some of the most calamitous laboratory accidents in history to show you how important safety is in the lab.
Accidental IEDs at UoM
In 2015, the Pariser Building on the University of Manchester’s North Campus was evacuated after a researcher’s experiment went wrong. The incident led to the shutdown of major roads around the city centre as police and bomb disposal units were called in.
Concerns were raised when a researcher on a plastics experiment realised his sample of acetone peroxide had crystallised. The danger was that the student could have produced the trimeric form of the compound, triacetone triperoxide (TATP). This volatile chemical is a white crystalline powder that can be detected by a bleach-like or fruit-like smell when pure. If subjected to an ignition source such as friction, mild heat, or electricity, the compound is an extremely sensitive and dangerous explosive.
Due to its ease of manufacture and high volatility, TATP, nicknamed the ‘Mother of Satan‘, is a common ingredient in bomb-making, and has been used in improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in multiple terrorist attacks. Fortunately, the sample was dealt with quickly, and there was no damage caused, other than to the pride of the researcher.
Heavy-footed disaster at the Super-K detector
The Super-Kamiokande (Super-K) detector is located in a zinc mine 1000 metres beneath Mount Ineko near Hida, Japan. The detector studies neutrinos, very light particles that are produced in the Sun and the Earth’s atmosphere by cosmic ray interactions. As they only weakly interact with other particles of matter, neutrinos are incredibly difficult to detect. However, they can occasionally interact with water nuclei to produce electrons.
The Super-K detector uses a huge tank holding 50,000 tonnes of ultrapure water to increase the chances of a neutrino interaction occurring. When an interaction does take place, the electrons produced emit photons of light, which are detected by the 13,000 photomultiplier tubes surrounding the vat of water.
Experiments at the Super-K detector have demonstrated neutrino flavour oscillation, a process where neutrinos change type as they propagate through space. The observation of this process is direct evidence of neutrinos possessing mass, something that is not explained in the current physical understanding of the universe. This discovery led to one of the researchers, Takaaki Kajita, being awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2015.
In 2001, Super-K was the site of a disaster. During routine maintenance of the detector, workers walking around the floor of the tank weakened some of the PMT detectors. When the tank was refilled with water, these tubes burst, creating a chain reaction that destroyed 11,000 of the photomultiplier tubes. Researchers at the time estimated the cost to repair the damages caused would amount to $30 million and left the experiment out of working order for a year. Pretty big consequences for some heavy feet.
Explosion at Texas Tech University
In 2010, students at Texas Tech University in America accidentally blew up a chemistry lab while trying to make derivatives of nickel hydrazine perchlorate. The chemical is a blueish/light purple, insoluble, odourless compound that can detonate very easily.
The student produced a 10g sample of the compound and divided it into two batches, one for characterisation studies and one for solubility tests. Believing the compound to be stable when wet, the student immersed one of the batches in hexane and ground it up. Initially, the compound didn’t detonate. But, when the student attempted to grind up the chemical a second time, the sample detonated, causing a large explosion.
Luckily, there were no casualties; however, the graduate student was seriously injured. This sparked an investigation by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board into the safety of laboratories at the University. The report found serious areas for improvement within the University’s labs.
How safe are labs?
According to ‘A review and critique of academic lab safety research’, 25-38% of lab staff have been involved in an accident or injury that they did not report to a supervisor. This staggeringly high percentage highlights the issues surrounding laboratory safety. Experiments can be extremely dangerous when proper protocols and training are not put in place to safeguard participants.
Undergraduate labs can be extremely interesting, and being able to get hands-on with the science you learn in lectures is an amazing opportunity. Despite the risks involved, as long as proper protocols are put in place to identify and mitigate risks, students are able to measure, research, and discover more about the universe we live in safely.
