[labnetwork] Hazardous gas delivery logistics

[Kay Gastinger]

Dear Nava,

I would not trust on the gas company. At least in Norway, the drivers have rather low competence, so take control as soon as the gas comes off the trailer. I would make sure that nobody except your experts are in the area, definitely close the corridors/elevators, nobody travels in an elevator together with the gas. Make sure the bottles are secured against falling off during transport. Be aware they come in different sizes, you might need several sizes of transport devices.

We have always 2 of our engineers with oxygen masks (both) connecting the bottles, one works - one checks. Both plan the work together and make a list of steps on how to proceed. If unplanned things happens, stop the work and make a new plan that both agree on. Write it down and follow strictly. If we handle Silane I would also recommend a fire fighter dress. We did not leak check the bottles when they came, as far as I remember. Turn on emergency ventilation under installation. Standard procedure when connecting with leak check etc. store The gas bottles in its cabinets until installation.

I assume of course your gas detection system is tested and operational. NI purging is important before connecting. Take care of the “other end” of the pipes when starting up a new system. I would close the cleanroom and also here the gas detection system should of course be operational.

The gas pipes are leak tested? We found after some year out that the welds in our system were not tested with x-rays. That I would really recommend. We tested 10% of the joints and found considerable pits in one of the pipes, that we had to repair later-on which is much more challenging with all the other pipes and dangerous gases around.

I hope that helped.

Kay

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Kay Gastinger, PhD
Director
NTNU NanoLab, Chemistry building I / room 122,
N-7491 Trondheim
Norway

tel. +47 / 7359 1490
mob. +47 / 982 83 906

www.ntnu.edu/nanolab<http://www.ntnu.edu/nanolab>
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From: <labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu> on behalf of Nava Ariel-Sternberg <na2661 at columbia.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 31 January 2018 at 23:50
To: "labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu" <labnetwork at mtl.mit.edu>
Subject: [labnetwork] Hazardous gas delivery logistics

Dear all,

I am very happy to say that we are finally gearing up to full operations in the Columbia University clean room (after a long renovation period, inspections, permits etc.). The final stage will be to bring on-line systems that use toxic and other hazardous gases that we do not yet have on site. As we are getting ready to receive those gases, we started discussing what would be the safest way to receive them and the logistics involved. This has brought some interesting questions and I wanted to get some inputs from other facilities.

Could you please comment on the toxic gases receiving procedures in your facility? Is the delivery done at special times in the day? Are you securing the cylinder path? (making sure no one is in the corridor/elevator etc.?) Are you performing leak checks when the cylinder arrives to campus? Are staff wearing SCBA when handling the cylinders? When is the transfer point between the gas company and the technical staff of the clean room?

Thanks,
Nava


Nava Ariel-Sternberg, Ph.D.
Director of CNI Shared Facilities
Columbia University
530 w120th st., NY 10027
Room 1015/MC 8903
Office: 212-854-9927
Cell: 201-562-7600

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