[Nhcoll-l] fluid-preserved collections explosion hazard and safety

[Lennart Lennuk]

Dear all!

I have urgent question about fire safety in fluid-preserved collections.
We are planning new building for Estonian Museum of Natural History and until last week it was not considering the potential danger of ca 15 cubic meters of fluid-preserved specimens, speaking of 12 tonnes of 70-75 % ethanol.

I need some examples from the best of this world. We had meeting last week with our fire-safety specialist but he seemed to have no knowledge or skill to deal with such amount of ethanol.

Most important questions are:

a)      In case of fire, how to exit? Sprinklers and gas extinguishing are out of question. But then, if I spill a jar full of something toxic or poisonous and some fire gets loose, what then?

b)      Do you handle your fluid-preserved collectins as an explosion hazard? How do you mitigate the risks? How do you lead out the heat from collection in case of fire?
I think a pressure valve, which just flies away in case of overpressure, would mitigate some risk.
We already have planned the ventilation to near-floor, ideally separate from rest of the building.
An alternative is to put all fluid-preserved vessels to the flammable liquid safety cabinets but this may be more expensive than secure the whole room.


So far I have checked NPS, ConserveOGram, Collection Forum, spnhc wiki and STASHC but have not find any specific information about that:

1.         Simmons, John E. Fluid Preservation.

2.         ? Storage Concerns For Fluid-Preserved Collections. Conserve O Gram 11, 1–4 (1999).

3.         Marte, F. & Solazzo, C. The Stability of Natural History Specimens In Fluid-preserved Collections. 10.

4.         Neumann, D. & Carter, J. Baseline Standards for Fluid Collections. 47.

5.         MacLeod, I. D. Conservation of a museum megamouth shark specimen by changing its preservative from aqueous ethanol to aqueous glycerol. Collection Forum 29, 73–89 (2015).

Best regards!
Lennart Lennuk
Head of zoology
Estonian Museum of Natural History
+372 6603404, 56569916




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