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20 Up-and-Comers to Watch in the lab supplies Industry
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Lab safety equipment is an integrated part of the whole safety system equipments in every chemical plant. It is provided in order to avoid lab accidents, reduce hazard (chemical, physical and biological) exposure and etc.
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Various analytical works are carried out in laboratory everyday, which involve the use many hazardous chemicals or hazmat. As the consequences, many potential hazards are possible to happen in the laboratory, such as chemical spills, worker exposure to toxic gases, explosion, fire and electric shock.
So that's why the equipment plays an important role in accident prevention inside the laboratory. It can save workers from death and injuries, and keep your accident statistic remain zero.
Then, what types of lab safety equipment do you have to provide? Here is the list.
Fire Lab Safety Equipment
There are many fire hazard sources inside the laboratory due to the existence of flammable liquid and gases, combustible materials, and fire sources such as electric sparks, high temperature surfaces and lighter. Fire accident can also happen through chemical reaction between two chemicals or more which can also cause explosion.
Fire extinguishers may become the most important fire lab safety equipment that has to be provided in the laboratory. Place only suitable type of fire extinguishers or multi purpose extinguishers.
Other fire lab safety equipments are emergency showers, which are designed to give first aid in case workers catch fire. Lab workers should wear fire-retardant capes to protect their body from flying sparks when they handle flammable gases or liquids.
Personal Protective Equipment
Harmful chemical splash into eyes should be anticipated by installing emergency eye washer or stations. It is described in MSDS that eyes have to be washed with water at least for 15 minutes after eye contamination with harmful chemicals.
Lab safety goggles are the first defense against chemical splash. Lab safety goggles can protect lab workers from such hazards.
Eye washer should be located in near workplace; free from dust and dirt, with room temperature, easy to operate, easy to reach and kept clean. Other personal protective equipments used in the laboratory are hand gloves, gas maskers and safety shoes.
Ventilation System
The next lab safety equipment is ventilation system. This type of lab safety equipment is required to keep the quality of air inside the laboratory. Air in the laboratory can be contaminated with toxic gas, flammable gas, flammable liquid vapors, etc. And these contaminants have to be removed from the laboratory continuously.
Air ventilation system is very essential to avoid fatal inhalation of toxic chemical or gases. Always refer to safety standard like EPA and OSHA when you are buying or designing air ventilation system for the laboratory.
Lab Safety Cabinets
Biological lab safety cabinet is required for biological laboratory to avoid contamination of biological hazards. However, it is uncommon for the laboratory in chemical plants.
The most common one is chemical safety cabinet. It is used for storing hazardous chemicals, i.e. laboratory reagents, standard solution and the like in the laboratory. Chemical safety cabinet can be fire proof, explosion proof or even leak proof. It is usually equipped with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filters installed at air intake and air exhaust.
There are some things in life that you can save money on by cutting corners and that you can find much cheaper than the asking price if you're willing to shop around. There vortexer are some things that can be bought second hand, or that can even be bought damaged and these often are good financial decisions if they mean that we save money on our supplies. However there are also other things that we should not try and save money on and that it's important to try and find the very best for. Laboratory supplies are just some of these things and it's incredibly important when buying supplies for school chemistry lessons, for business or our own private use that we ensure that we find a good supplier that will provide us with the best possible equipment. The reasons this is so important are myriad, and cutting corners in this case could not only ruin your experiments, but also be highly dangerous.
As any scientist or hobbyist knows, science is an incredibly precise practice. There is no way that any results of any experiment are ever going to be taken seriously unless the experiment can safely rule out all confounding factors. Confounding factors mean any un-accounted for elements to an experiment that could affect the results, and this includes less-than perfect laboratory supplies. For example if your pipette is not as good as it could be it might leave you less accurate and this could alter the results of your experiment and render them worthless.
At the same time though and more importantly, having poor laboratory supplies will result in a serious health risk that could result in your burning or hurting yourself. If your pipette or test tube should leak this could potentially cause you to get corrosive acid on your hands, clothes or even your eyes. While this is usually important it becomes far more important if you are working with children such as in a school chemistry class who will not necessarily be as careful as you would yourself. At the same time you are looking after someone else so you have a responsibility to try and keep them safe - both for their sake and for their parents. One of the best ways to do this again is by taking time to find and invest in the best and safest possible laboratory supplies.
And it is not just your health and the health of those working with you that you need to bear in mind either - and all sorts of other things can also be damaged by poor laboratory supplies, that makes it very important to ensure the supplies are of greatest quality. For example if you have a leaky pipette then you could easily drip onto your table, onto your carpet, or onto your clothes and this would cost money and take time to replace and repair. Worse it could damage something valuable such as a watch or a phone. In this sense then, spending money on good laboratory supplies is an investment that will pay off down the line.