Hey guys, I realy screwed up today (literaly) so I decided to make this post about my accident so others will learn from my mistake.
Anyway, I had a full waste bottle (2,5 l of non halogenated solvents) and I wanted to put it to waste cabinet but I couldnt find keys so I decided to leave it for later. I closed the bottle and screwed the top too much. In about 30 mins, I hear a loud "pop" and yellow waste started to spill into my hood. I tell you its not pretty to see. In about 30 seconds my hood is totaly covered with yellow solvent waste in with depth of maybe 3mm (sadly I was not able to take a photo for obvious reasons). What to do next?
1) don´t panic
2) turn the air conditioning in your hood (or whatever its called) at max
2a) if the bottle is broken at top, get a jar and put the bottle into it to avoid any leaks and clean
2b) if the bottle is broken at bottom (like mine) well, remove any sensitive stuff (TLC´s for example) from hood asap to avoid damage. Chemicals in glass/plastic bottles can survive for while but get them out as soon as you can. Remove everything you can from the hood
3) take tons of paper towels and soak the waste into them.
Wear double gloves at least, double gloves + rubber gloves are recomended4) take a jar or pail to put the soaked towels into (and squeeze the soaked solvent out of the paper towels so you can pour the solvent waste into another waste bottle and get rid of it), keep it in hood!
5) repeat 4
6) repeat 5
7) because you had the hood turned on max, most of the waste solvent is either soaked in towels and now there is only non-volatile stuff in the hood
clean your hood with suitable solvent (acetone, methanol whatever you use for cleaning)
9) enjoy the cleanest hood in your lab
TLDR: dont screw the bottle too much
Two pictures as attachment:
a) cracked bottle
b) my hood before step 8