Hi guys, my name is Chase and I am a Chemistry PhD student with a focus in organic synthesis. I have over 11 years of experience working in labs as well as an extensive history as a hobbyist. While I am not alone in the creation and building of this website (more introductions coming soon), the idea came to me a couple years ago when I went abroad for half of a year and came home to open one of my cabinets and find 3 mystery bottles of chemicals at the bottom. All labels had slid off the containers and blurred completely.
The culprit was a bottle of diethyl ether. Rather, the cap of a bottle of diethyl ether. While I was using the correct container type, I accidentally used one of my non-PTFE lined caps. The high vapor pressure allowed the solvent vapor to creep through the neck of the bottle. Inside the closed cabinet, this vapor was able to degrade not only the adhesive, but also the ink on all the labels.
While it’s an easy mistake to never make again, it brought my attention to a few things. First, it seemed silly to me that one mistake could lead to several hazards due to label degradation. These labels were either from manufacturers or reputable, widely used, professional chemistry brands. I couldn’t believe the industry standard was something that wasn’t able to handle 6 months of being in an environment they were supposedly designed for. Of course, it was my mistake to use the wrong cap, but this doesn’t mean we can’t improve safety for people who make the same mistake in the future.
The second thing I took note of was the lack of user-friendly information about these kinds of topics. There were hobbyist sites, which never got into the nitty-gritty niche cases that can really pose the largest hazards. Or there were large directories from manufacturers, which were dozens of pages of walls of text for each chemical. There was no middle ground for someone to be both curious and safe.
I saw a way to knock out two birds with one stone. We can make a resource with more niche cases types of information while still being reliable and an authority on safety. Simultaneously, we can come up with a type of label adhesive and ink that can withstand specific extreme conditions for specific environments, for dedicated cabinets (Organic Solvents Cabinet with organic solvent resistant labels, etc). We would have the perfect audience to share these labels with given the resources we are providing online.
After a few years and I am back in school and decided now is a better time than ever to finally get started on this project. I have two wonderful colleagues helping me build the community here. They are both working on creating their own introduction pages to share with you.
All disposal guidelines are cross-referenced by someone other than the author with SDS’s and EPA guidelines before publishing. Information is consolidated from manufacturers, experience, and reputable chemistry publications.
Contact Information
EmailHobbyChemist
PO Box 8138
Reno, NV 89507