Water and I don't mix in chemistry lab
So today in chem lab we were recrystalizing a compound we made last week to purify it. To do this we boiled it using organic solvents which have really bad-smelling toxic fumes. So to keep the fumes in the flask we set up this contraption that uses cold water from the sink to cool a long tube which causes the vapors to condense and fall back into the flask. The water that is in the pipe runs from the sink to the pipe then back out another tube to the sink again. Pretty easy to set up and all so I hooked the tube to the faucet and turned on the water. The thing about the faucets though is that they have 2 holes, water is supposed to come out one and the other is used to create a vacuum for filtration, kinda complicated sounding but basically this second spiget/hole whatever is pointed straight out to the side. So when I turned on the water to run it through my cooling system the water came out both holes for some reason and it sprayed all over the kid across from me's stuff. His lab notebook and manual, all over the desk, on the heat/stir plate. Everywhere. I felt really bad and tried to help him wipe some of it up but he was probably quite annoyed, he certainly didn't look happy and he didn't really say anything either.
So fast forward to about 15 minutes later. Jaime called and I told him about spraying the kid and he laughed and then I went back into lab to try and get this thing to work so I could do my experiment. This time I hooked the faucet-to-cooler tube to a different sink over on the end of the lab bench. Turned on the water while covering the extra hole and no water sprayed out. Ok, good. But I didn't know if water was going through the whole thing so I turned up the water just a tiny bit. The thing about lab sinks though is there's no such thing as a tiny bit. So the extra water pressure makes the second cooler-to-sink tube flip out of the sink and once again, yes you know what's coming, it sprayed all over the same kid's stuff. And this time even more water sprayed out so his notebook and manual were wet again, I got the desk totally covered in water and probably almost got it in his compound which we weren't supposed to mix with water. So he looks at his friend next to him and shakes his head with one of those "I can't believe people are really that stupid" type looks. So this kid thinks I'm a complete idiot, as do probably any other people who saw and I felt bad for getting his stuff wet twice but at the same time it was so ridiculous I had a really hard time not laughing.
So basically after that and spraying myself once last fall and getting soaked I think I just shouldn't be allowed to use water in chem lab ever again.
So fast forward to about 15 minutes later. Jaime called and I told him about spraying the kid and he laughed and then I went back into lab to try and get this thing to work so I could do my experiment. This time I hooked the faucet-to-cooler tube to a different sink over on the end of the lab bench. Turned on the water while covering the extra hole and no water sprayed out. Ok, good. But I didn't know if water was going through the whole thing so I turned up the water just a tiny bit. The thing about lab sinks though is there's no such thing as a tiny bit. So the extra water pressure makes the second cooler-to-sink tube flip out of the sink and once again, yes you know what's coming, it sprayed all over the same kid's stuff. And this time even more water sprayed out so his notebook and manual were wet again, I got the desk totally covered in water and probably almost got it in his compound which we weren't supposed to mix with water. So he looks at his friend next to him and shakes his head with one of those "I can't believe people are really that stupid" type looks. So this kid thinks I'm a complete idiot, as do probably any other people who saw and I felt bad for getting his stuff wet twice but at the same time it was so ridiculous I had a really hard time not laughing.
So basically after that and spraying myself once last fall and getting soaked I think I just shouldn't be allowed to use water in chem lab ever again.