From: Daniel Kuespert <dankuespert**At_Symbol_Here**ME.COM>
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] "Read the SDS"
Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2018 11:13:08 -0400
Reply-To: ACS Division of Chemical Health and Safety <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Message-ID: DDA50235-0D9D-457F-AFC2-D2A0DE883D80**At_Symbol_Here**me.com
In-Reply-To <162b52f961d-179a-1f0f4**At_Symbol_Here**webjas-vab113.srv.aolmail.net>


I agree that it's necessary to teach students to read SDSs, and to do so with a critical eye. The things that worry me are the more subtle errors that creep in, and particularly the things that are omitted. Reactivity hazards seem to be a common area to gloss over hazards with a "No Data Available." My copy of Bretherick's gets a lot of use since I routinely consult it whenever anyone asks me about a chemical.


While the students will need to learn the SDS, even a good SDS does not include all relevant safety information, only (maybe) what's in the OSHA reg (and possibly the big thick GHS book if they're really comprehensive). Prudent Practices has its chemical information cards, which are a start, but they're few and kind of old at this point. I'm still wondering if we need to take the bull by the horns and either make up our own "Chemical Safety Sheets" or somehow pressure the lab chemical suppliers into providing SDSs that are appropriate for laboratory use.

I wonder if we could put together a specification for a "good" SDS and get our respective purchasing departments to start incorporating it into lab chemical contracts as a purchase condition. That would get Fisher and Sigma's attention! It would also be less effort for ACS than trying to come up with "chemical safety sheets" for lots of chemicals. (And involve less liability.)

Actually, the water SDS came from PPG, not P&G.

Regards,
Dan

On Apr 11, 2018, at 10:50, Monona Rossol <0000030664c37427-dmarc-request**At_Symbol_Here**LISTS.PRINCETON.EDU> wrote:

Actually, I might take seriously the advice to wash off any water coming from P&G where my husband worked for many years.

The bad SDSs are out there because either people are so uneducated they don't know they are bad, or people like you and I just let them go without a complaint to the company or the fool who prepared them.

I teach students that the minute they see this kind of obviously wrong stuff on the SDS, to immediately disregard the whole document and either find a better product or pursue other ways of determining the hazards of the product (I have my ways).  It's the same as teaching them to recognize a screwy study or a suspect website. A course on SDS reading also must include evaluation of the SDS itself.

Monona Rossol, M.S., M.F.A., Industrial Hygienist
President:  Arts, Crafts & Theater Safety, Inc.
Safety Officer: Local USA829, IATSE
181 Thompson St., #23
New York, NY 10012     212-777-0062

 


-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Kuespert <dankuespert**At_Symbol_Here**ME.COM>
To: DCHAS-L <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**PRINCETON.EDU>
Sent: Wed, Apr 11, 2018 10:06 am
Subject: Re: [DCHAS-L] "Read the SDS"

Perhaps what is needed is a "SDS"-lite specifically for use with teaching labs, calling out the relevant portions of the SDS, adding additional cautions suitable to the audience (like "don't stick your nose in a bottle and inhale deeply to determine if it's ether-I actually saw someone do that once!). 

The SDS simply tries to be too many things to too many people. I have one from PPG for "100% water" that seriously advises that if you get any on you, you should rinse it for 15 minutes in running water! I have another one for sucrose that calls for full Level A containment suits to clean up a sugar spill, which might actually make sense at a transport accident where there's sugar dust everywhere, but not for general lab use. (Actually, firefighting turnout gear would be more appropriate for the transport incident, since the main risk would be a dust explosion.) Seeing even one of those stupid types of SDS notations will turn a student off to the SDS as a reasonable source of information. 

Additionally, SDSs sometimes omit information essential to laboratory use of a chemical. The notation "use appropriate gloves" is particularly maddening to me when I read it, although I do get that each individual glove model has different properties, and even the same material may not resist a chemical in the same manner. I've also seen SDSs (from a major lab chemical manufacturer) that omitted the fact that Pd/C hydrogenation catalyst is spontaneously flammable if you start to let it dry out, particularly when used.

So perhaps we need, as a profession, to starting thinking about "what information do students need in lab" (and "in senior design courses" for chemical engineers), and establish some standards for what should be covered in such a chemical information document. The SDS is not serving us well. I'm not sure training on "how to read a SDS" really solves the above problems.

Regards,
Dan Kuespert

Daniel Reid Kuespert, Ph.D., CSP
11101 Wood Elves Way
Columbia, MD 21044
410-992-9709

On Apr 11, 2018, at 08:44, Mary Beth Mulcahy <mulcahy.marybeth**At_Symbol_Here**GMAIL.COM> wrote:

[M]SDSs have piqued my interest since I took my first HAZWOPER course. I remember wondering during that course how I managed to get a PhD in chemistry without ever learning how to read an MSDS--I didn't know what the NFPA diamond was or what IDLH stood for. So, my question to all of you in the classroom, how do you teach your students to read/interpret an SDS?

This morning I looked up the SDS for NaCl and H2SO4. Looking at the two of them side-by-side, I think even a novice could clearly differentiate that sulfuric acid is more hazardous than table salt based on the SDSs. If though the novice did not have the SDSs to compare and you took the name off of the SDS, I wonder how a novice would interpret the hazards of table salt. For example, the SDS for NaCl that I am looking for exposure guidelines states "This product does not contain any hazardous materials with occupational exposure limits established by the region specific regulatory bodies," and then under Other International Regulations states "Mexico Grade-Severe risk, Grade 4." How does a novice interpret that? Do you teach your students the limitations of regulatory-based exposure limits? Do you teach them about Mexico Grades? Do you focus on the NFPA diamond?

I would hope that after reading the SDS for table salt that a novice woudl feel comfortable using the chemical, but I'm not sure they would if you removed the name of the chemical from it. Anyone out there ever handed out a sodium chloride SDS in an intro chem class (with the name of the chemical removed) and asked the students if they would feel comfortable using it?

Mary Beth Mulcahy

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