(40ba) Texas Tech University Lab Explosion

In January of 2010 at Texas Tech University (TTU), a sample of Nickel (II) Hydrazine Perchlorate (NHP) exploded in a chemistry laboratory due to a lack of proper safety practices and procedures. One of the graduate students working in the lab suffered the loss of three fingers, a perforation to his eye, and various cuts and burns all over the rest of his body. Additionally, a piece of the lab bench broke, and projectiles from the detonation damaged other portions of the lab shattering any glass equipment in the surrounding area.

An investigation conducted by the Chemical Safety Board (CSB) found insufficient protocols and safety culture in the labs at Texas Tech. The university had a Chemical Hygiene Plan (CHP) in place that was consistent with OSHA lab standards which did not require training on the physical dangers of hazardous chemicals. At the university level, there was no established method of analyzing near misses that could be learned from, or Process Safety Culture that inherently protected researchers through an expectation of the highest regard to safe lab practices.

There were four total recommendations made by the CSB. One for OSHA to update their current standards to encompass the physical hazards of chemicals, one for the American Chemical Society (ACS) that defined the meaning of proper hazard identification and risk analysis, and two for TTU that asked that they revise their CHP and implement a near-miss reporting system to understand when an accident could have occurred and how to prevent it.

This incident became a staple not only for university chemistry labs and lab safety but even stretched to the scope of larger corporations understanding their place in chemical research funding as well. NASA released an in July of 2012 discussing the course of events at TTU and culminating in a section dedicated to its relevance to the company. This was particularly interesting because it was an avenue not fully explored in the recommendations. The research being performed at Texas Tech was for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and yet there were no special precautions put in place before the grant being given. After the fact, the DHS began several safety initiatives with the ALERT program. The recommendation that was missing from the CSB was one for the DHS to ensure that an incident similar to Texas Tech would never happen again by requiring the DHS or any company employing a university lab for research, be thorough in their safety expectations of whom they contracted.

Overall, the recommendations put in place by the Chemical Safety Board were sufficient in deterring further major laboratory accidents. The work being done in labs across the country is so vast and for discoveries to be made and continue, there must be safety practices and protocols in place to ensure that the work being done gets a chance to be completed and results can be shared across the globe.