1927 hydrogen cyanide preparation cigarette smoking advice - image

[bruce.desertrat]

Uhh nope!!!

That said I've had my fair share of 'Fun with Faulty Hoods' back in my days as a working chemist.

One time I was doing a big Soxhlet extraction with about a liter or so of ether, very carefully, had the hood almost closed, wearing a respirator. Unbeknownst to me the weather that day was weird, and the hood exhaust was being blown directly into the air intake for the building. I was fine, everyone else was getting mildly stoned on ether...

Another time, my boss was working with a selenium compound that carried a BIG warning about 'EXTREME STENCH! Characteristic odor of rotting radishes.' (pretty sure it was this one https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin...h_selenophenol ) similar to my experience (this was in a different facility) the wind that day drove the exhaust from our hood right inot the building air intake.

Within minutes everyone was trying to get out of the building while avoiding puking, with varied success. The only reason it was not as bad as it could have been was that he was working after hours, so about 80% of the normal population had gone for the day.

That was when we discovered that our lab, which was built into an addition to the building, did not have stacks on our hoods that met code; the folks who built it simply used a convenient air exhaust out the side of the building...

BTW if you're interested or experienced in chemistry or just want to read stories about horrifically reactive chemicals, that 'Things I Won't Work With' blog is a treasure trove of reading, entertaining, understandably written, and quite informative. Look up the entry on FOOF some time. (and yes, that is it's chemical formula Difluorodioxide. )