[Nhcoll-l] Entomological (and dangerous) collections

[Sergio Montagud]

Thank you, Douglas

I don’t know how we can investigate it, because only the smell exists, no liquids. Probably we need to detect vaporous substances.. too many difficults.

As always occurs, sure our creosote comes from the coal-derived, so we must to consider it dangerous. Also the smell is so powerfull and all investigators that works with these boxes, go to their homes with the clothes with that smell that last during days.

Maybe, we can think to destroy these boxes...

Thanks for writting!

Sergio
De: Douglas Yanega <dyanega at gmail.com>
Fecha: martes, 21 de febrero de 2023, 17:44
Para: Sergio Montagud <sergio.montagud at gmail.com>
Asunto: Re: [Nhcoll-l] Entomological (and dangerous) collections
On 2/20/23 4:24 AM, Sergio Montagud wrote:
Dear all,

This is a special question for entomologist curators. We have a large collection of insects (Coleoptera and Hymenoptera, mainly) in a standar small entomological boxes (26 x 19 cm). These type of boxes is half of the standard entomological box and was used extensively in the beginner of XX siegle.

But the preservation chemical that was used is creosote and all the box have a smell so strong. Due to the toxic and dangerous that is the creosote, we will go to change the insects in a new boxes, althoug the same insects could maintain the same smelt.

But the original boxes, with the toxic smell, we don't know what to do. They could be interesting because are ancient and historic. Some of them are labelled with original writting of the entomologist. In other case, without dangerous creosote, all of them would be preserved safely. But now...

What do you recommend? Anyone knows a safe method to preserve these boxes? Or maybe, like scince-fiction, one method to extract all vaporous creosote from the wood.


Sergio:

There are two very different types of creosote, one of which (coal-derived) is clearly toxic, the other (wood-derived) is not (or much less so). I know this because we had a bottle in our entomological museum here of the latter (wood-based), and I had to research it when filling out our hazmat paperwork.

It is fairly important to establish which of these two is involved, and I am not sure how to determine which one is which unless one has the labeled container, as we did. There may be a chemical test that can distinguish them.

Peace,

--

Doug Yanega      Dept. of Entomology       Entomology Research Museum

Univ. of California, Riverside, CA 92521-0314     skype: dyanega

phone: (951) 827-4315 (disclaimer: opinions are mine, not UCR's)

             https://faculty.ucr.edu/~heraty/yanega.html

  "There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness

        is the true method" - Herman Melville, Moby Dick, Chap. 82
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