The Department of Homeland Security contracts some of their research work to a number of academic institutions through several programs, including Awareness & Localization of Explosives-Related Threats (ALERT). Essentially, they're studying compounds made from common materials that could be used in improvised explosives in order to find better ways of detecting and neutralizing these threats.

You would think that in a lab dedicated to working with 'energetic materials' - a chemistry euphemism meaning 'stuff with a tendency to blow up in one's face' - would have some safety precautions in place, in addition to the basic safety protocol one is supposed to learn the first week of freshman intro chemistry. In point of fact, there were - among others, the tenured professor running the lab had specifically instructed her students not to make more than 100 mg of any of these materials. Trouble is, she didn't check to ensure that these rules were being followed.

The student had it coming. He REALLY had it coming. This wasn't some naive freshman who had never seen the inside of a college lab before - he was a doctoral candidate who was training another grad student to take over his role in the study when he graduated.

The compound he was working with was Nickel Hydrazine Perchlorate. To those fluent in the chemistry dialect of GeekSpeak, 'perchlorate' designates a compound which is not to be meddled with - perchlorates have a tendency to be explosive. He was concerned about batch-to-batch consistency, and therefore, against his professor's instructions and against the advice of another researcher, scaled up synthesis to 10g - this is 100 times the maximum amount his professor had told him to make. The material was lumpy, which any chemist knows can lead to inconsistent results - the normal course of action would be to grind the sample to make it homogenous. However, energetic materials are something of a special case, both because of the conditions which can cause them not to be not homogenous, and because they are often both heat and shock sensitive. Therefore, grinding them and thus creating heat and friction is a very bad idea. Additionally, the lumps could contain highly unstable unreacted material, or they could be a much more unstable crystal form of the target compound. The safest course of action would be to separate out the lumps and analyze them separately to determine their composition and reactivity.

This student, however, was under the impression that the material was stabile when 'wet', and so he added some hexane and placed the material in a mortar. In chemistry terms, 'wet' refers explicitly to water unless another solvent is specified. Some compounds are happiest in water, and some hate water with a (literally) fiery passion. For a compound that is stabile when water-wet, moistening it with a hydrocarbon like hexane is merely adding fuel to the inevitable fire. So when the student put on his goggles and - on the open bench with no fume hood, let alone blast shield - “very gently, very, very gently” used a pestle to try to break up the chunks, he was courting disaster. At first the lab gremlins were kind - he successfully ground the compound smooth without incident, so far so good. But then, while still standing at the bench, he took off his goggles in an area in which he should never have been without them, and gave the material one final stir. Hands up, everyone who can see what's coming next.

You guessed it. The material exploded in his face. The bench cracked dramatically, he lost three fingers on one hand, and his eye was punctured by flying shrapnel. Seeing as he did live to tell the tale, he does not yet qualify for a full Darwin, but at this point, it's only a matter of time. You see, the investigation into the explosion uncovered a number of other chronic problems.

1. His lab notebook, the holy grail of any researcher. This is meant to record exactly what you've done, to the point that anyone familiar with basic lab procedure could recreate your entire experiment using nothing but your notebook, as well as your observation. As an undergrad, following pre-printed cookbook instructions, I regularly covered four or five pages in my notebook in a single 4 hour lab period. In 4 months, this student went through... 14 pages. His procedures were vague and inconclusive. His notebook listed the compound he was working with that day as cobalt perchlorate hydrazinate, while the student he was working with lists the chemical as nickel hydrazine perchlorate - the visual appearance of the product is more consistant with the nickel compound.

2. He was infamous for his cluttered work area, littered with vials of Deity-of-Choice only knows what, because the vials were unlabeled. Unlabeled vials are an enormous safety hazard, as it makes it impossible to tell what the hazards of the contents might be, and what might set it off.

3. Some of the instrumentation the student needed to use was located in other buildings on campus. Instead of transporting samples properly in aluminum containers clearly marked as containing explosives, he carried them in glass vials in his backpack or coat pocket. Additionally, the bomb squad found numerous vials of explosive material in his home, a result of his forgetting to remove said vials before he left the lab for the day. Of these, the only one which was labeled contained TATP, or triacetone triperoxide, a very dangerous high explosive.

While the tenured professor should have been more vigilant about enforcing safety regulations, this student was not an inexperienced freshman, he was well on his way to a Ph.D of his own, and in every position to know better. He ignored numerous warnings from student colleagues in the lab, and blatantly ignored instructions in scaling up without consulting with his advisor. Even the most naive freshman knows to always label all containers and to never, ever take off your goggles while you're in the lab. While the student has survived this time and been barred from handling energetic materials at this institution, he is currently working on his dissertation, and with callousness THIS blatant, it's only a matter of time, so he remains an at-risk survivor.

Submitted on 12/09/2010

Submitted by: Allison
Reference: http://pubs.acs.org/cen/science/88/8834sci1.html Jan 7, 2010

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Candi said:
Definitely Keep: Honorable Mention
Oh my bloody goodness. This guy is just *asking* for a Darwin! I just hope no one else gets hurt;just being around this guy sounds dangerous. Thanks, Alison!

Bruce said:
Definitely Keep: Honorable Mention
Un-freaking-believable. I'm almost at a loss of words over the idiocy exhibited by this what I assume to be now EX-doctoral candidate. I'm glad to hear the other student wasn't injured, and the photograph in the referenced article certainly helps in giving some insight into just how powerful the explosion was. That counter top looks rather difficult to crack. Thanks for sending this in, Allison!

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