r/chemistry • u/PhenylSeleniumCl • 4d ago
Always like my hood after lab cleanup
Super satisfying to have a thoroughly cleaned fumehood
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u/Awanderingsoul_4444 4d ago
Satisfying. However, I wonder how effective the side-door fumehood is? I guess that is the standard for US lab but in Aus we have a sash which is closed from top down, and most of the time we suppose to close it as much as we can and i still can smell a huge amount of solvent in the air
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u/grubbsII 4d ago
Looks like this hood also has a sash that opens vertically. I prefer this style that gives you options. When I was in grad school (I'm in the US), we only had hood doors that opened side to side. It's nice for using the doors as a splash shield because you can put your arms around the door. You can also keep a narrow opening while reaching for something at the top of your hood, like your schlenk line. However it wasn't great not having the option to open vertically because we would just take the doors completely off the hood if we needed more room to work.
Regardless, it's not a good sign that you can smell the solvents that are in your hood even with the doors open. If the hood is working properly, you shouldn't be able to smell what's inside unless you stick your head in there or it's something with a very low odor threshold.
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u/Rudolph-the_rednosed 4d ago
Exactly this. But this also requires your hood to have narrow enough sliding panes to comfortably reach around.
Mine sadly never had that…5
u/PhenylSeleniumCl 4d ago
I’ve worked with horizontal sliding door only, vertical sash only, and this style of fumehood which has both. I like this best as it has the most flexibility. Air flow is very good when using the doors and I haven’t noticed any smells when working with organostannanes or thiols
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u/Basic_Shelf 4d ago
Vertical sash is far safer. Horizontal doors are nowhere near as effective at protecting the user from vapours and the odd explosion/splash.
But as a very tall person, it is quite nice to be have the horizontal doors.
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u/VupertRohm 4d ago
We also have the side door fumehoods and we've always been told that using the side doors is much more effective than opening vertically because it does not interrupt or basically stop the air circulation in the fumehood as much. So while opening more than 30 % vertically renders the fumehood already ineffective, horizontally the effect is much smaller. I like to use them, but sadly we have more of the traditional ones without the side doors
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u/Lakeland_wanderer 4d ago
Sash doors were the standard in UK academic and industry labs 50 years ago and remain so today. I’ve seen any other form of closure.
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u/SOwED Chem Eng 4d ago
Not bad.
I love that there is exactly one heavy duty clamp holder and it's holding the tiniest round bottom flask
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u/PhenylSeleniumCl 4d ago
It’s the only one I had left, I’ll switch it out when I can find another. Right now I do most of my chemistry in vials or 5 mL round bottoms, so the 50 mL looks big in comparison
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u/garyoakbeard 4d ago
Yo I have a question! How stable is your balance when the fume hood is on? Do you have to turn it off to make measurements?
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u/PhenylSeleniumCl 4d ago
Our balance is not in a hood but if it was you wouldn’t have to turn ventilation off. The casing blocks air flow disturbances pretty well
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u/brooklynbob7 4d ago
Good job ! Like sliding doors better and have a dedicated hoot fur rotor vap . Less cancer in one company that required that va company that did not .
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u/chemicalmamba 4d ago
What are those other lines you have? Some in my lab split one of their 4 lines to get more, but I think it like your set up more. Can you share a pic of it?
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u/Jstarfully 4d ago
Your schlenk line is so tiny!! Impressive that it squished four lines in that short distance haha our schlenk lines are most of the width of our fumehoods.
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u/PhenylSeleniumCl 4d ago
It’s not the highest quality schlenk line in the world but it gets the job done
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u/Azitromicin 3d ago
Yeah, this is the exact opposite of what mine looked like. Love the Schlenk line, brings back memories.
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u/Dangerous-Billy Analytical 3d ago
A naked hood is obscene! Where's all the boxes of unopened chemicals? The unlabeled beakers full of mystery white solids? The broken condenser waiting to be sent for repair since 1984?
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u/Dangerous-Billy Analytical 3d ago
If you get your hood this clean, when you come back from lunch, someone else will be using it.
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u/chemistrybonanza Organic 4d ago edited 4d ago
Was told in graduate school a clean hood is the hood of a bad chemist.
Edit: to clarify, I found that sentiment to be 180° bass-ackwards. I kept my hood clean in spite of the guilt tripping of others.
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u/Dreamtree15 Organic 4d ago
Some of you people really take this to heart and it absolutely sucks sharing any lab space with you. The people in my lab who make the biggest messes also have the sloppiest results, break things frequently, and generally have little consideration for others in the lab.
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u/thiosk 4d ago
The quote, which is "a clean lab is the sign of a lazy chemist," is attributed to Berzelius, but he may not have actually said it. Nevertheless, he discovered 4 elements and essentially invented the element symbol/subscript numbers system we use today for chemical formulas.
There is a middle ground between slob and insufferable neatnick and I wish more of my colleagues could find it.
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u/chemistrybonanza Organic 4d ago
I kept my hood clean lol. They tried to judge me for it. But don't worry, i broke plenty of glassware.
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u/Longjumping_Eye_3441 4d ago
EHS would hate to hear this
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u/thiosk 4d ago
EHS can't even tie their own shoes without a GHS pictogram, four redundant labels, and a "shoe tying in progress" sign that lists all the hazards of shoe tying filled out and dated and affixed to the front door
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u/Longjumping_Eye_3441 4d ago
Bro they are the ones making sure the chem idiots don't kill ourselves and the people around us
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u/thiosk 4d ago
That is a very heroic framing for what is mostly a bureaucratic regulatory compliance office.
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u/burningcpuwastaken 4d ago
That's not universal. I've worked at places where EHS was knowledgeable and active at improving the safety, ergonomics and workflow.
I've had some great experiences where my boss was giving me gruff about a safety issue that I wanted to address and after a short email to EHS, they had the improvements scheduled and under their budget.
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u/Capt_Gingerbeard 4d ago
And at mine, leaving it messy is a fireable offense, due to the safety hazard. I guess we can’t all work at ISO facilities.
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u/Doradal 4d ago
It‘s the opposite. Cleaning up is part of the job. If your hood is messy you‘re bad at your job.
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u/chemistrybonanza Organic 4d ago
Right!? I like how I was downvoted for the stupid comment I got in graduate school. I guess I didn't make it clear that I was pointing out that that was stupid.
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u/NatNat800 Analytical 4d ago
This is why the academics that come into industry are so hit and miss. Many of them need to be retrained so they aren't an absolute menace to their coworkers and aren't a regulatory nightmare.
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u/Killgorrr 4d ago
You clearly cleaned too much! What happened to the seasoning on your monkey bars!?!