Part 1: Tales of a Faulty Fume Hood: The Symptoms

Hey folks, beautiful Monday to you all!

How was your weekend? Fleeting? Hopefully you had a blast. Most people are back on work today. Probably as you are reading this you might already have prepared your DMG for your nickel analysis or are waiting for those acids in your samples to be fully evaporated. Wherever you are and whatever it is you’re doing, I’m wishing you a fruitful and safe week ahead.

Safety is such a big deal to us. Safety is something precious for us working in the lab. With the kind of hazards we are exposed to, one wishes nothing but to be able to go home to our families safe and sound after 8 hours of being exposed inside the lab. We may look well, but do we always have the assurance that we are totally okay? Okay in a sense that we did not get ourselves exposed to any contaminants that would only take their toll on our health years after? Yes we can. We need to demand that whatever containment barrier we are using, it should be safe, calibrated, reliable, and tested for safety.

I remember one incident with my previous company where I worked as a quality analyst. Like most labs, ours was temperature and humidity-controlled. One day, the temperature readings were off the chart so we requested for a technician to have our air-conditioning units inspected. To everyone’s horror, what we saw when the unit was opened sent a jolt of anguish over its dilapidated condition. The air-conditioning unit’s insides were rusty, corroded and damaged. Its innocence was massacred. Its internal flaw was covered with deceptive aptness.

After further investigation, we found out the culprit. A silent killer. It was our fume hood unit, a fabricated one, has leak holes all over. Instead of exhausting the fumes out towards the atmosphere, they were recirculated back to the laboratory.  Our lab is heavy on the use of strong and corrosive acids such as nitric, perchloric, sulfuric and hydrochloric, so it was the contaminated fumes that were exhausted out by our air-conditioning units. The detrimental damages were irreparable. So were our health. Did we feel safe? We thought so but not until the symptoms of a faulty fume hood were imminent. Lurking inside us was a feeling of betrayal. We trusted it could keep us safe. But it didn’t. We were compromised.

My career with them had an early demise. That incident had pushed me to be your safety advocate. So what are the early signs of a faulty fume hood? Here are some you can check:

• Corroded metal wares such as your airconditioning unit’s insides, your window’s grill (if you have) or the nails on your wall. Look for it.
• You can smell the pungent smell of the fumes coming out of the hood. Nitrous fumes has this distinct smell. But this tends to be unreliable since you tend to develop an immunity towards its smell the longer you stay inside the lab.
• Although typically not allowed, an outsider will know if the lab is filled with contaminated air. You can have someone do a quick check. Again, this is not totally reliable.

Again, these symptoms are totally not reliable and you may not want to get there since that would signify that you are already exposed to the contaminants. Like in any case, you can do something to keep the burglar away. The best way to prevent this kind of incident shall be tackled in the second part of my article.

Keep watch. Stay safe.