| Mistake | Check the mistakes you have made | Number of rookies who have done this
|
|---|
| Wore incorrect gloves, dissolved them.
| | 16
|
| Forgot that inside of drying oven door is hot, touched it, dropped glassware on floor.
| | 14
|
| lost vacuum on rotevap, flask drops, shattering into filthy water bath, extract organics from dirty water while filtering the dead bugs floating in it
| | 14
|
| Used too much force opening a NMR tube and broke it (And cut yourself)
| | 13
|
| Burn hand on hot plate because it didn't look hot!
| | 10
|
| Plugged heating mantle directly into wall power.
| | 9
|
| dropped NMR tube with out the air on
| | 9
|
| Pick up something from the floor and while doing so, dropping the contents out of the front pocket of your lab-coat (usually NMR tubes)
| | 9
|
| broke a flask containing my compound on the floor, sopped it up with paper towels, then extracted the compound out at %25 yield
| | 8
|
| removing the vacuum in the rotary evaporator withot clip in the flask, this causes the loss of products
| | 7
|
| Condensed liquid oxygen or solid argon with liquid nitrogen. (A mistake you only make once.)
| | 4
|
| Poured Stir-bar into Sep. Funnel, decided to shake it anyway and shattered the funnel.
| | 4
|
| About to run a small column you crush the glassware by tightening the clamps to far.
| | 4
|
| Broke a flask containing my compound on the floor, sopped it up with paper towles, then extracted the compound out at %25 yield.
| | 3
|
| Broke precious sample which was supposed to be recovered afterward in a NMR tube when sticking it into NMR spinner.
| | 3
|
| Add Pd/C catalyst to an ongoing hydrogenation without removing the H2 first: fire!!
| | 2
|
| didn't properly cool a bomb flask before opening, stuff shoots out everywhere
| | 2
|
| Injected self with syringe containing BF3.Et2O
| | 2
|
| Attempted to force capillary tube through thin rubber septum to obtain TLC sample. Tube broke off in finger...trip to the emergency room!
| | 2
|
| Didn't believe post-doc when he said "KH is much more reactive than NaH"...sink fire
| | 2
|
| Poured what you thought was hexane over old Na metal prior to quench...turns out it's water. Giant jet of flame.
| | 2
|
| discharge syringe with t-BuLi in open atmosphere...flamethrower!
| | 2
|
| Put a syringe with little NaH into water. Giant jet of flame.
| | 2
|
| Turned oil bath up to max power. Left for the night. Advisor discovered the combusting oil bath early the next morning and calls you at home.
| | 1
|
| Turned up HCL(g) tank too much, hose bursts and recieved an acid spray to the face.
| | 1
|
| Brought in own air supply in an old bottle of tBuLi and started a fire in a drybox.
| | 1
|
| Dropped depth gauge down NMR spectrometer.
| | 1
|
| Spilled solvent into a drinking bottle on the benchtop then drank it
| | 1
|
| Distilled to dryness and shrapnelled the whole distillation rig.
| | 1
|
| sublimed t-BuOK, threw unsublimed solid in solid waste, solid waste catches on fire...twice
| | 1
|
| While 'maintaining' 2000 dollar high vacuum pump, pour oil into outlet. Express surprise that pump can hold so much oil. Supervisor not impressed :(.
| | 1
|
| A chain was attached to a hood to secure a glass cylinder and you accdidently dissolved it
| | 1
|
| Knocked a small spatula that had some sodium hydride residue on it into a sink into which a post-doc had let a waste solvent bottle over flow into.
| | 1
|
| Released hot distilled to dryness system straight to atmosphere, small explosion.
| | 1
|
| Checking drybox gloves for leaks using vacuum, no leaks found but imploded faceplate of drybox
| | 1
|
| Had to sneeze whilst handling sodium - covered my mouth - gloves on fire!!
| | 1
|
| Used a platic basket to put small pieces of glassware in oven. Had to scratch out the molten plastic cake to clean the oven.
| | 1
|
| Washed your gloveless finger with concentrated sulphuric acid because it was in an unlabeled beaker and looked like water
| | 1
|
| Forget to wear gloves while handling picrates...became sensitized
| | 1
|
| poured ice/water into beaker containing about 20 mL chlorosulphonic acid realized what I was doing and stopped. Beaker was blown apart
| | 1
|
| Added more than a drop of Conc H2SO4 to acetic anhydride and H2O2 mixture. Whole setup blew off.
| | 1
|
| cleaned frit with fuming nitric acid, frit was dirty with azodyes, liberated Nitrogen Dioxide into air.
| | 1
|
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