[labnetwork] Hazardous gas delivery logistics

[Luciani, Vincent (Fed)]

Hello Nava,

I recommend an inspection checklist and a hand held sniffer before a cylinder is permitted to be unloaded.  Perhaps it has changed since my last deep dive into the details but there are “cradle-to-grave” codes and responsibilities with regard to toxic gasses.  Once the cylinder is off the truck the recipient has additional responsibilities with regard to handling that cylinder if it turns out to be a leaker.   The vendors have special mobile units to deal with such cylinders but would much rather drop it and leave, making it your problem.

Before it gets off the truck, the valve should be visually checked to make sure it is wrapped and protected from weather, no rust or debris in the outlet, that it has the right CGA fitting,  the outlet cap is in place, valve neck is not bent etc. etc. etc. and of course that the sniffer does not detect a leak.  If it checks out, you allow the driver to unload the cylinder and you can treat it as a known non-leaker and carefully transport it like any other cylinder to its safe location.  If it does not check out, you can refuse delivery and thus it is still in the vendor’s “cradle-to-grave” responsibility and they must deal with it.


Vince


Vincent K. Luciani
NanoFab Manager
Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology<http://www.cnst.nist.gov/>
National Institute of Standards and Technology
100 Bureau Drive, MS 6201
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-6200 USA
+1-301-975-2886





From: labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu [mailto:labnetwork-bounces at mtl.mit.edu] On Behalf Of Nava Ariel-Sternberg
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 2:07 PM
To: 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

​

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://mtl.mit.edu/pipermail/labnetwork/attachments/20180202/65975b1b/attachment.html>