tert-Butyllithium Claims Fellow Chemist at UCLA
Posted by : mitch | On : 20-01-2009 | Comments 100
Story is from UCLA Newsroom (Jan 19th):
A UCLA research assistant who was seriously burned in a laboratory fire last month has died of her injuries.
The 22-year-old woman, whose name has not been released, died on Jan. 16 at Grossman Burn Center in Sherman Oaks. She was transferred there after initial treatment for second- and third-degree burns at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center.
The accident occurred Dec. 29 while the assistant was working with T-Butyl lithium, a highly flammable compound, in UCLA’s Molecular Sciences Building. The fire was extinguished by a colleague.
The fire is under investigation by UCLA’s Environment, Health and Safety department.
Link to article: Research assistant dies of injuries suffered in December lab fire
Update 1: More experimental details are coming out.
A 23 year old female research associate/laboratory technician intended to add an (unknown) aliquot of 1.6 M t-bu-Li (in pentane) to a round bottom flask, placed in a dry ice/acetone bath. She had been employed in the lab for about 3 months. The incident occurred on Dec. 29, during the UCLA holiday shutdown between Christmas and New Years. Researchers are granted permission to work during the shut down for “critical research needs.” There were two post doctoral researchers working in the lab and the adjacent lab, with limited English proficiency.
The principal investigator had trained the employee to slightly pressurize the bottle (an ~ 250 ml Aldrich Sure Seal container)...
