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Experiment at Boston College goes awry: Explosion shuts Beacon Street
By adamg on Sat, 06/25/2011 - 11:11am
BFD at BC. Photo by BFD.
An explosion in a basement chemistry lab at Boston College around 10:45 a.m. forced the evacuation of the building and the shutdown of Beacon Street.
The Boston Fire Department reports the explosion was in the Merkert Chemistry Center. The student who apparently caused the explosion fled to her apartment on Faneuil Street in Brighton, where EMS and BFD decontamination units responded to treat and decontaminate her. She had been working with thionyl chloride, "a reactive compound that can explosively release dangerous gases upon contact with water and other reagents."
After she was decontaminated, EMTs brought her to St. Elizabeth's Hospital for treatment of cuts and minor burns, the department reports. There were no other injuries and damage was confined to the basement of the chemistry building.
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Comments
Facts
Thionyl chloride is SOCl2, a liquid used to chlorinate organic compounds. It will react exothermically with alcohols and water, generating HCl and SO2 gas. I would not call this an explosion. TNT explodes. C5 explodes. NH4NO3 and diesel fuel explode. Pouring thionyl chloride into water give a violent boil, not an explosion.
possible confusion
with sulfuryl chloride (SO2Cl2)? Pretty sure that what happens when that is added to water qualifies as an explosion.
BFD reports ...
Steve MacDonald at BFD says it was thionyl chloride.
an explosion generally is
an explosion generally is caused by the rapid release of gases and heat. Or in other words, what you described as being what occurs when Thionyl chloride comes into contact with water...
Gas explosion
You could trap the resulting gasses in something that can tolerate some pressure, then wait for the vessel to explode.
Is any one else worried that
Is any one else worried that a student who is allowed to handle such volatile compounds thought that the best course of action after an explosion was to run home, not stay around to explain what happened? What if it had been something that caused a serious threat, and by not reporting it or sticking around to explain others were injured through exposure? This probably wasn't the worst thing (granted she had to be decontaminated) but still, it could have been.
I am concerned that there is not a standing procedure for what to do when things go wrong, or if there is that its not reinforced enough where it becomes a reflex. I hope she was somehow delusional as a result of the explosion and just wandered home. Because if not it really worries me that someone who is allowed to handle such dangerous things run home to hide when they make a boo boo.
It's called 'mental shock'
Accident victims wander away from the scene all the time - years ago I and some other drivers stopped to help at the site of an accident on the Mass Pike and we had to convince an injured woman to come to the side of the highway and wait for medical assistance rather than walk back down the Pike the wrong way!
I suspect that many people would experience mental shock (aka acute stress reaction) if they had a beaker blow up in their face and pepper them with broken glass.
Or could be an overachiever
Or could be an overachiever losing it because they think they messed up.
Expected, yes
However, why didn't a buddy know enough to stop them? Or was this person working alone with hazardous chemicals? If so, why?
Surely, it was just
Fire and Brimstone. Surely.
Isn't this the way
Isn't this the way superheroes are usually created?