Lab Safety: Inhaling Sulfuric Acid

The topic for this episode is a brief story about lab safety or as I like to call it, ‘That time I accidentally inhaled sulfuric acid.’

Several years ago, while I was still a high school sophomore taking chemistry, we had a lab project involving 6 M sulfuric acid. Now, outside of iron being involved, the rest of the details escape me. My partner and I were monitoring our solution comprised mostly of sulfuric acid, as it was bubbling away on our hotplate. I was seated closer to the windows and he was to my right on the other side of the hot plate.

Having some spare time until the solution was finished boiling, I was starting my section of the lab write up. Having a few of groups using hotplates at the same time, the air was becoming rather unpleasant to breathe rather quickly.

It was at this point that our instructor warned us they she had decided to turn on the lab’s safety fans. These ‘safety fans’ from what I could see appeared to be two small box fans haphazardly mounted to the windows. Based upon my previous two years I assumed they would be as useless as every other piece of equipment in the school (which was torn down the year after I graduated) – or so I thought.

Turns out these were industrial grade fans and as soon as they were powered on the pleasant cloud of evaporated sulfuric acid that was rising straight up towards the ceiling was now traveling at a perfect 45 degree angle straight into my face as I was taking a breath.

Cue 5 minutes of gagging, another ten of constant coughing, two weeks of nosebleeds, one month of completely raw sinuses, and two months before my respiratory system felt as if it had returned to normal.

Let’s just say I took lab instructions quite a bit more seriously throughout the rest of my time in high school and college.

You can listen to this story in video form below: