Chemical Forums
Chemistry Forums for Students => Undergraduate General Chemistry Forum => Topic started by: kalel93 on June 26, 2013, 06:36:08 PM
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so in my college chem class, i accidentally cut myself with a piece of glass, anyways i just washed it off, though it continued to bleed. we used these chemicals: concentrated nitric acid, 6M sodium hydroxide, 3M sulfuric acid
my question is, if a little bit of these chemicals touched the wound, could it have gotten into my bloodstream? if so, what effect would they have? thanks
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Hi kalel93,
If you went on to touch surfaces with your "wound" whilst it was still bleeding, then yes, you may have material dissolved some into your blood stream. However, you have around 5 litres of blood in you (if you're a normal adult human) which is constantly being "mixed" and the dilution factor would be on the scale of one to 10 million, rendering the already dilute harmful substances insignificant. The worst you might expect to feel is a very temporary light-headedness, and a burn in the immediate region of the wound, but alas even this would require a more significant dosage.
Enjoy!
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The chemicals you've listed are very harsh, and may even hurt your unbroken skin. And you would have certainly felt them even stronger if they actually contacted an open wound. So you should be fine. Funny choice of reagents ... conc. nitric and sulfuric and conc. base. Did you actually have an application for all three at the same time? I can think of some, but I'd like to hear yours. When working with something hazardous, its worthwhile to use careful planning, and engineering controls, to make accidents less likely. Some examples for this case, they should be far from each other, maybe used in a hood, or a bench with a lip, or be used in plastic bottles.
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we didn't use the chemicals all at once, it was an experiment where we had to remove copper from copper strings, not really sure what we did, but we used the chemicals at different times. anyways, i think one or more of the chemicals did enter, b/c i felt burning a few times when i was rinsing out the equipment. what would happen if a little bit of the chemicals did enter my bloodstream? thanks
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what would happen if a little bit of the chemicals did enter my bloodstream?
on a microscopic scale a lot will happen ... (like, some cells might die and that like)
... which is of exactly no relevance for you, as a major organism
blood is a highly buffered system which can come to terms with those acids/ the base easily, and the resulting microscopic additional amounts of SO42-, NO3- and Na+ should be no problem at all (as those ions occur in your blood anyway)
--> you'll have more or less minor local caustic effects on the skin, but no intoxication "inside"
regards
Ingo