Saga, Edward Louis Eisen R.

28 October 2021
CPE11S3

Laboratory Report #1
Chemistry Safety
 I. Objectives
This study aims to teach the student to:
1. To learn the different safety measures needed inside the laboratory.
2. To understand the hazards and risks that can be found inside the laboratory.
3. To understand the creation process of biodiesels and the included risks.
4. To be more familiar with the various equipment that are available inside the laboratory.
5. To learn the critical thinking that is required whenever an accident occurs.
 II. Introduction
Safety within the workplace has always been a fairly popular topic that is discussed in all the
various fields. This is more so for people working in laboratories where they are being exposed
daily to chemicals that can easily harm them. According to the World Health Organization
(WHO), “Chemical Safety is achieved by undertaking all activities involving chemicals in such a
way as to ensure the safety of human health and the environment.”. Chemical safety after all
aims to put the wellbeing of the worker first before everything else. Chemical safety can be
implemented in various ways within the laboratory and these are a few methods that I have learnt
in the laboratory.

The first method is the implementation of the four principles of safety developed by Robert H.
Hill and David C. Finster. They can be shortened using the acronym RAMP, which for short
means recognize, assess, minimize, prepare. The first principle or the letter R means to recognize
the hazards of chemicals, equipment, and procedures. Depending on your expertise this could be
very challenging as you are tasked with knowing the dangers each chemical possesses and how
to best mitigate the hazards that you are posed with. The second principle or the letter A means
to assess risks of hazards associated with exposures and procedures. This requires the researcher
to know hazards and risks that accompany the research procedure that they are partaking in. This
is what I consider the most important principle of all because it is the difference between an
accident happening or not. The third principle or the letter M means to minimize the risk. This
requires that you take whatever reasonable steps are necessary to minimize, manage, or eliminate
your exposure to a hazard by using good laboratory safety practices. This can only be done after
a careful consideration of risk. The key steps in minimizing risk are designing and performing
experiments with safety in mind, using personal protective equipment and other safety
equipment (such as chemical hoods), and applying good housekeeping practices. The fourth and
last principle or the letter P means to prepare for emergencies. These emergencies can be fires,
explosions, exposures to chemicals, personal injuries, all the sorts of hazards that have already
been considered. Preparing for emergencies involves knowing what safety equipment is readily
available and how to operate them.
The second method of implementing chemical safety is employing leaders that have a major
focus on safety, which I will call safety leadership from now on. There are many traits that are
common between leaders. According to Geller, 2000, the best way to ensure a safe workplace is
by establishing a “safety culture” wherein safety leaders constantly show acts of safety in the
workplace to instill the thinking into the employees. A safety leader must be honest and
trustworthy to be a safety leader and you must be able to motivate people to do their jobs in a
safe manner. As a safety leader you should lead by example so that you always follow safety
procedures every time you enter the laboratory. Always wear appropriate safety gear, and always
consider safety in all that you do. Overall, you should be one who has adopted the safety ethic so
that you not only believe in the value of safety but you strive to ensure that safety becomes an
integral part of your everyday life. Leaders learn to communicate effectively so that they can get
their message across to those who need to hear it. Their words should be inspiring and positive to
emphasize what is possible. A safety leader should continually strive to learn more about safety
and how to relate the importance of safety to other people. Leaders seek to educate in safety
rather than relying only on safety training.

The last part of this introduction focuses on the creation of biodiesel within the laboratory
activity. With the gradual increase of pollution in the environment, people have started to look
for more natural alternatives that are much more accessible and less harmful to the environment.
This has led to the discovery of biodiesel. Biodiesel is currently available in two forms, the first
being 100% pure biodiesel and the second being biodiesel mixed with petroleum diesel. The
higher the percentage of biodiesel in mixed form, the healthier it is for the environment. The
associated benefits of biodiesel are lower greenhouse emissions, better for the air quality, being
overall safer to the health of vehicles and increased opportunity for businesses. Lower
greenhouse emissions meaning less carbon dioxide that is adding to global warming which
reduces the rate the earth heats up. Better for the air quality because the emissions produced by
biodiesel contain less particulate matter, which is known for causing asthma and lung disease.
Being overall safer for vehicles because its combustion point is lower than petroleum diesel
meaning the car does not heat up as much. And for the last increased opportunity for businesses
because we are currently entering a new era where the usage of natural resource alternatives is
becoming very common. Common example is the increased population of electric vehicles that
are being made for the public. Natural resources are finite materials and during the last century
we did not consider the risks that are accompanied with their usage. The effects are showing now
in several ways such as global warming, increasing sea level because of melting ice caps, and the
dwindling of the natural resources. This has caused the spark of “going natural” because
currently, the earth is our only home. We should take care of the planet and should stop
depending heavily on the natural resources that are presented to us.
III. Materials and Procedure

A. Materials
● PPE (Personal Protective Equipment)
● Methanol
● Sodium hydroxide (NaOH)
● Fume Hood
● Algal Oil Extract
● Heat Plate
● Beaker
● Magnetic Stir Bar
● Empty Glass Bottle
● Acetic Acid
● Non Halogenated Disposal Container

B. Procedure
1. Wearing of PPE
2. Short activity of memorizing the hazard symbols.
3. Wearing gloves, getting the methanol and then entering the lab.
4. You are presented with the choice of choosing your workstation between the chemistry
lab bench and the fume hood.
5. Interact with the fume hood and place the methanol at the very back.
6. Ensure that the fume hood is clean.
7. Use acetone to clean out the stain inside the fume hood.
8. Discard your gloves and get a new pair of gloves.
9. Pour the methanol to the beaker on top of the heat plate.
10. Pour the catalyst or the sodium hydroxide inside the beaker.
11. Put the magnetic stir bar inside the beaker
12. Start up the heat plate
13. Wait until the mixing is over and then add in the algal oil extract
14. Raise the temperature of the heat plate to less than 5°C of the melting point of methanol
(60°C) and start the heat plate up again.
15. Pour the biodiesel into the 500 mL glass bottle.
16. Close the fume hood.
17. Open the fume hood for chemical disposal purposes.
18. Pour the acetic acid into the methanol solution to dispose of the solution
19. Pour the solution into the non halogenated waste disposal container.
20. Close the fume hood.
21. An explosion occurs. Get Marie (the scientist that teaches you) out of the damage zone.
22. Ring the fire alarm, turn off the circuit breaker, then leave the premises.
 IV. Data and Results
The main focus of this section will be the creation of biodiesel using algal oil extract.

Fig 1.1: Chemical Structure of Algal Oil

Algal oil has a triglyceride chemical structure. Its main components are the three-carbon glycerol
backbone with three hydrocarbon chains bound to its right side.

Fig 1.2: Transesterification

The transesterification process is a reversible reaction and carried out by mixing the reactants
fatty acids, alcohol and catalyst. A strong base or a strong acid can be used as a catalyst.
 Fig 1.3: NaOH to be used as catalyst to heat up the mixture of methanol and algal oil.

Fig 1.4: Successful production of biodiesel with the addition of glycerol molecules that can be
used for soap production.
Fig 1.5: Successful creation of biodiesel and glycerol. Biodiesel is on the top while the glycerol
is at the bottom.
 V. Discussion
The main components of algal oil are the three-carbon glycerol backbone with three hydrocarbon
chains bound to its right side (See Fig 1.1). In order to create biodiesel out of algal oil the three
hydrocarbon chains to the right must be removed with the usage of transesterification ( See Fig
1.2). The alcohol that is used for the process will be methanol, common alcohols used in
transesterification are ethyl and methanol. The reason for the usage of methanol is because of the
lower amounts of methanol required to produce biodiesel as seen in (Transesterification to
Biodiesel, 2011). The reaction between methanol and the algal oil also requires the addition of
sodium hydroxide to be used as the catalyst to heat up the reaction mixture. There are other
chemicals that can be used as catalysts but sodium hydroxide (see Fig 1.3) is used here because it
dissolves faster in methanol than other catalysts (Clean Energy). Expected results of the
experiments are the production of biodiesel with the added benefit of glycerol molecules that can
be used in other experiments such as soap production (see Fig 1.5).

A fume hood is a workstation that is required in order to work safely with methanol. This is
because methanol easily evaporates and can cause intoxication with lower doses. It can even
cause death if intaked with a high dose. The fume hood acts as a vent that sucks in the vapors of
chemicals that are placed inside so that the scientists can safely work with the chemicals.

The cleaning after the results of an experiment that uses chemicals must be very thorough. If not
cleaned properly it might result in accidents in that workstation. In the simulation this happened
around the end when Marie’s workstation exploded. This is just one of the examples of what not
properly cleaning your workstation can cause.
 VI. Conclusion
I believe that every one of these objectives have been met. The simulation taught each of the
hazards and risks that can be encountered in the lab. It also taught the preparations that one must
make before beginning with the experiments. Ensuring that the person working on the
experiment is safe and properly equipped. The simulation also properly showed how biodiesels
are made and what its byproducts are. Biodiesels require 3 main products to be created, them
being the oil, catalyst, and the alcohol. The byproducts in the meantime are the biodiesel and
glycerol which can be used for other experiments. The simulation also taught the various
workstations that are inside the laboratory and the equipment that are required to maintain and
work with that exact workstation. And finally the simulation properly executed what to do in
case accidents happen. First making sure that there are no personnel left within the damage zone,
then ensuring that the other people within the area are notified of the accident happening, turning
off the electrical connection between the area to prevent further damage, and then finally leaving
the area to go safe zones.
 VII. References
Chemical safety. (2019, October 10). World Health Organization. https://www.who.int/health-

topics/chemical-safety#tab=tab_1

Four Principles of Safety. (2021, October 24) St. Olaf College. https://wp.stolaf.edu/chemical-
hygiene/ramp-recognize-assess-minimize-prepare/#:~:text=RAMP%3A%20Recognize%2C
%20Assess%2C%20Minimize%2C%20Prepare%20%E2%80%93%20Laboratory%20Safety
Jr., R. H. H., & Finster, D. C. (2010). Laboratory Safety for Chemistry Students (1st ed.). Wiley.

Geller, E. S. (2000). The Psychology of Safety Handbook. Taylor & Francis.

R. (2021, October 4). 5 Reasons to Use Biodiesel. SeQuential. https://choosesq.com/blog/5-

reasons-to-use-biodiesel/

Transesterification to biodiesel. ETIP Bioenergy. https://www.etipbioenergy.eu/value-

chains/conversion-technologies/conventional-technol

ogies/transesterification-to-biodiesel

An Alternative to Methanol for Biodiesel Production from Sunflower Oil. (2011, June

24). Crop Biotech Update.

https://www.isaaa.org/kc/cropbiotechupdate/article/default.asp?ID=8039

Baskar Thangaraj, Pravin Raj Solomon, Bagavathi Muniyandi, Srinivasan

Ranganathan, Lin Lin, Catalysis in biodiesel production—a review, Clean Energy,

Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2019, Pages 2–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/ce/zky020

Appendices
Honor Pledge

“I affirm that I have not given or received any unauthorized help on this report, and
that this work is my own”
Eisen Saga