In-Reply-To: <01cb01cbb78b$2060e7f0$6122b7d0$**At_Symbol_Here**com>
Neal, you know I have the
utmost respect for you as well.
In
semiconductor production, where the potential for contact with
miscellaneous organics is already relatively low, I will agree with you
and David that the risk is manageable. But this is not the
situation I was was addressing, and I should have made that more clear.
It's one thing to clean a few atomic layers off a couple of glass
or metal substrates, but it's another thing to clean buckets of flasks
and frits encrusted with myriad organic and metallic contaminants
(catalysts).
In almost any routine academic
chemistry laboratory where organics are used and where the accident
rates are *dozens* of times higher than in production facilities, it is
sadly clear that despite everyone's best efforts, risk management of
hazards fails on a frighteningly routine basis. In most
universities I have been at, the PI enters the lab rarely, if at all,
except for their first few years of tenure. I had colleagues at
MIT who saw their advisor once every several months, and that was during
scheduled meetings in his office. Housekeeping is generally quite
poor, and lab procedures are handed down in a game of Telephone while
wonderfully thoughtful SOP's gather dust. I have seen professors
nod their heads in faculty meetings about the need for safety,
professors whose own labs were filled with hoods cluttered with
equipment and multiple bottles of unlabeled and uncapped
waste.
I wish every laboratory could be the
utopia in that (otherwise wonderful) video. I wish I just once had
a professorial colleague that rational and safety-oriented. But in
my experience, academic chemistry research labs are on the far side of
the planet from that ideal. So unless a lab is specifically set
up for semiconductor research and has procedures to segregate organics,
I have to stand by my treatise.
You raise an
interesting point about telling a PI "no". If a PI insists on
using a process/method when far less hazardous and much less risky
procedures are available, it is incumbent upon us to offer/explain those
alternatives and have him justify the need, just as we saw after the
UCLA incident with the push to raise awareness about the safer
alternatives to t-Butyllithium (which some folks may still need to use,
of course, which is where we really step up as you indicated).
It's a fine line between being seen as the obstructionist Safety Police
versus a thoughtful Safety Partner at times,
indeed.
Rob
On Jan 18, 2011,
at 10:44 PM, NEAL LANGERMAN wrote:
Rob
-
I really hate to disagree with you, but you are wrong. Piranha
has been used
since the 60's in both semiconductor R&D and
production with very few
problems. The issue is NOT the hazard,
which you are addressing, but the
risk, which must be
managed.
So, if the PI makes the case for using
"tetra-ethyl-death", it is our job to
help make it happen
safely.
I cannot buy into telling a PI (I was one for 15 years)
"you cannot do that"
Sorry, even though I tend to agree with
most of your postings, you are
wrong
here.
nl
Neal and Rob,
As a semiconductor process engineer
for 40+ years, I must say I agree with
Neal on this one. The IC
industry has safely used both acidic and basic
piranha at temperature
of 100-150 C. with very few significant incidents in
the lab.
The few times we have had problems with it were due to
improper
disposal (failing to wait for it to cool properly) of the
waste solution
into improper plastic waste containers with tight
lids...Piranha can be
managed safely if people are properly trained
to assess the risks in their
use/waste procedures and demand
accountability of themselves and those
around them.
David
