• Question: Has anything ever gone horribly wrong while experimenting something?

    Asked by Ener_ to William, Roberto, Karen, Jasmine, Chinna on 6 Nov 2018. This question was also asked by oreowalsh7, Thinh Ann.
    • Photo: William

      William answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      In college i was working on this big synthesis (basically building chemical substances) and it was a 5 week process with many steps, On the final week we were meant to put something in to remove the water but i misread the label, put in the wrong thing and ended up breaking apart my substance and had to start all over. I always make sure to read the label twice since then!

    • Photo: Karen

      Karen answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      As part of an experiment recently I had to dry some plastic containers in an oven, I put them in too hot and they melted and broke the oven. The smell was so bad no one could go into the room for a few days! There’s a big sign on the door of the oven now saying “DO NOT PUT PLASTIC IN THIS OVEN” and every time I walk past it I cringe so hard đŸ˜€

    • Photo: Roberto

      Roberto answered on 6 Nov 2018:

      I would have lots of stories to tell you about. Possibly the worst one goes back to my high school lab training. We where suppose to heat up a specific chemical solution but I misread the label on top of the chemical bottle and I started to boil it. It was ammonia instead, a very volatile solution that quickly saturated the air in the lab space. Fortunately, the professor smelled the ammonia in time before all the class got intoxicated, quickly ventilated the lab and remove the becker from the flame.
      I was really embarrassed but fortunately nobody got injured.
      So, since then on I now double check the chemical bottles I am using for my experiments!

      Lesson learnt!

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