ORGANIC CHEMISTRY LABORATORY Standard and Microoscale Experiments

• Main Author: Rodig, Oscar R (Author)
• Format: Book
• Language: English
• Published: Philadelphia Saunders College Publ. 1990; ©1990
• Subjects: Organic chemistry
• Online Access: Click Here to View Status and Holdings.

 It has long been recognized that certain chemicals-for example, phosgene or the nerve gas isopropyl methylfluorophosphonate-are highly toxic sub stances that are lethal in extremely small amounts. In recent years there has been a considerable increase in awareness and concern about the toxicity of all chemicals encountered in laboratory and manufacturing environments. Major efforts are now being made to identify toxic chemicals and avoid exposure to them. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has prepared a registry of a large number of compounds for which some data on toxic effects are available. Another government agency, the Oc cupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), issues regulations governing permissible limits of exposure to chemicals, with particular at tention being placed on compounds that are commonly encountered as air contaminants. Many of the compounds for which limits have been set, such as diethyl ether and ethanol, have relatively low toxicity, but limits are nevertheless placed on prolonged exposure. On the other hand, compounds that may have high acute toxicity can be transferred and used in a laboratory with simple precautions to avoid contact. A major concern in recent years has been the carcinogenicity of organic compounds, that is, their ability to induce cancer. For certain compounds that were used industrially for many years, there is a clear link between exposure to the compound and the incidence of certain types of cancer in the workers who handled them, just as there is between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. More recently, evidence has been found for the occurrence of tumors in experimental animals exposed to very large doses of a wide variety of other organic compounds. A much-publicized example is the artificial sweetener saccharin, which was used for many years in low-calorie beverages. Government agencies, such as the Carcinogen Assessment Group (CAG) of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and NIOSH have compiled lists of suspected carcinogens, and laboratory chemical catalogs often iden tify these as "cancer suspect agents." The National Institutes of Health has published guidelines for the laboratory use of certain chemical carcinogens, and OSHA, in turn, has issued regulations on exposure to a number of carcinogenic substances, most of which are in commercial use. A brief list of carcinogenic compounds that are frequently encountered in laboratory work is given in Table 1.1. It should be pointed out that this list contains only a very small fraction of the compounds for which data on carcinogenic properties are known.