UW CHEMISTRY NMR

Dear Users

We always stand to gain to reinforce good practices in a Lab space, but this post is put out there with a sense of urgency.

As bona-fide NMR Lab Users, you must pay heed to the following.

• Access to the NMR lab space is granted not as a matter of routine, but it is a privilege to be respected.  This means, you must follow all the required rules and norms at all times.
• Even devoid of bench Chemistry being conducted,  the NMR lab is treated as any other lab by the EH&S department, and we undergo thorough inspections and cited for safety violations.
  
• It is NOT inconceivable that EH&S can shut the space down till we demonstrate that we, collectively as a lab, take the rules seriously and abide by them. The consequence of taking a spectroscopy central facility like ours offline, even for a brief period, can be left to your imagination, as practicing Chemists.
• Some specific points :
  • Things that get inside a Sharps container are strictly off limits. We have come across instances where people are seen to be ‘fishing’ from within the container to look for their samples (?).  This is a blatant violation of EH&S safety protocol.
  • With increased use of high throughput automation, you must put the needed effort to recover your samples ASAP, as you would do if you are running one sample at a time. There is no functional difference here.
    
  • Notwithstanding, we have been lenient in letting the used samples sit in a rack for a turnaround time of up to five days. This has been abused to the point where we are often left with a pile of NMR tubes with unknown provenance.
    
  • Only after cryogen safety certification from EH&S, one can handle the cryogens (i.e. Liquid Nitrogen) stored in the NMR facility (that includes NMR staff who run it).  So, without the consent of NMR staff, you cannot access the LN2 storage.
    

Hope you will take this ‘call to action’ with the needed importance it deserves and translate it into actual changes.  Please spread the word among your colleagues and friends, and thank you for your cooperation, always. 

NMR Facility

6.30.25