Labwork I have done in my first month as a PhD student

[kaberett]

(1) Learned to wash beakers
(2) Washed most (but not all) of my own personal beakers
(3) Been trained to use HF

...

One of these things is not like the others.

Also "learned to top up the acid stills", but that sounds like a bigger deal than it actually is so I'm leaving it off. ;)

Comments

[fyreharper]

For the uninitiated - what is HF?

[sorrillia]

"Terrifying"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrofluoric_acid

It has the particularly unpleasant property that it doesn't produce a burning sensation if it gets on your skin, but a few hours later it starts dissolving your bones, and the fatal dose for skin contact is fairly low.

[kaberett]

Actually, this is why dilute is more dangerous than concentrated, because concentrated you do feel if you get it on you.

[fyreharper]

Aha, yes, "terrifying" is a good description! I've mostly only heard about HF from my mom's stories about working in an assay lab ("does this chunk of rock have gold in it? no? how about this one? LET US SEND YOU MORE ROCKS IN OUR HOPEFULNESS" "nope, LOTS of arsenic in this sample though... no, seriously, lots"), so I didn't recognise the abbreviation.

[liv]

Thank you for this wonderful description. I actually had (mild) nightmares about being in a geochem lab and not being sure whether I'd splashed a tiny bit of HF on my skin, as a result of this thread.