[Nhcoll-l] [EXTERN] Fluid specimen room safety

Mon Jul 8 13:45:50 EDT 2024

Hi Joosep and the nhcoll community,

Our institute constructed a few fluid storage rooms to house mollusk specimens stored in glass jars and vials with 70% to 95% ethanol. These spaces were retrofitted within a standard office building and required significant reconstruction to pass inspection. In your case, the local fire authority will ultimately determine whether a space meets proper safety requirements. Our fire marshal approved the space specs after many (!) revisions. For this build, we have:

  1.

  2.
Each room has metal fire doors, sheetrock walls, sheetrock ceilings, and a flat, finished concrete floor (with no drains). Lights and outlets are spark-free.
  3.
The HVAC system was reconstructed to provide a separate exhaust for these spaces, since the vapors themselves can burn if there is a fire; this prevents the ignited vapors from circulating within the rest of the building in the rare event of a fire.
  4.
We are only allowed to store a maximum of 900 liters in each room and we have four such rooms for our entire mollusk collection. This liter maximum is to limit total burn time (I think it's estimated at staying contained for 2 hours if the entire room combusted and the doors were kept closed).
  5.
The fire suppression spray heads were aligned with fixed metal shelving from Bradford Systems.
  6.
We have spill kits in each room to sop up spilled ethanol and broken glass. We use spill control absorbent mats and plastic bins to place broken glass in.
  7.
The majority of our jars are stored in rigid plastic bins that are impermeable to ethanol. These bins would contain a spill or broken glass if one or more jars break within that tray. We are not in an area with high earthquake risk, so they did not require earthquake bars.
  8.
We have reduced the number of larger glass containers (anything over 1 gallon), and all larger lots are stored in blue plastic barrels; these will eventually be moved to a stainless-steel gasket tank this fall. The stainless-steel tank will be housed in a different space altogether to reduce our fluid volumes in the retrofitted fluid storage rooms.

Hope this helps!

Alison

--------------------------------------------------

Alison Stodola (she, her), Aquatic Biologist

Acting Curator of Malacology | Illinois Natural History Survey

Prairie Research Institute | University of Illinois

1816 S. Oak Street | Champaign, IL 61820

alprice at illinois.edu<mailto:alprice at illinois.edu> | 217-300-0969 (office)

INHS Mollusk Collection<https://mollusk.inhs.illinois.edu/>

________________________________
From: Nhcoll-l <nhcoll-l-bounces at mailman.yale.edu> on behalf of Simon Moore <couteaufin at btinternet.com>
Sent: Friday, July 5, 2024 4:11 AM
To: Dirk Neumann fp. <d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de>
Cc: NHCOLL-new <nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
Subject: Re: [Nhcoll-l] [EXTERN] Fluid specimen room safety

I would second Dirk’s remarks about floor ridges.  Having experiences them first hand with a trolley full of quite tall jars filled with alcohol and having to negotiate a floor ridge (on my own - reduced staffing levels!) so that the jars didn’t knock against each other!  This was back in the 1980s.  It also takes a large spillage combined with raised external temperature during a hot summer, to produce anything like a realistic fire hazard due to the rather lower flash point of alcohol versus other volatiles. However, Health & Safety parameters are often slightly exaggerated for obvious reasons.

With all good wishes, Simon

Simon Moore MIScT, RSci, FLS, ACR
Conservator of Natural Sciences and Cutlery Historian.

https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.natural-history-conservation.com__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwSpZd8T1$

> On 5 Jul 2024, at 07:18, Dirk Neumann <d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de> wrote:
>
> Dear Joosep,
>
> this depends on your local fire safety regulations; in principle, ethanol itself does not burn, but the highly flammable ethanol fumes. Depending on your HVAC system, a sufficiently high air exchange rates in your alcohol storage significantly reduces potential fire risks. Another relevant factor is reducing potential ignition sources, as ethanol usually does not self-ingnite. It needs a spark.
>
> In case of breakage, it is required in some countries that there are grooves or barriers, e.g. at doors to prevent that in case of a larger spillage ethanol can escape from the storage room. However, these grooves or small barriers usually affect much more, e.g. when you have to wheel carts over these barriers.
>
> Storage rooms should be equipped with small emergency kits that help to remove spillages; there are several chemical spill kits with binders etc. on the market.
>
> To create a combustible atmosphere it usually requires a "large spillage", e.g. a major earthquake or collapse of storage shelves that knocks off hundreds of jars at once.
>
> Hope this helps
> Dirk
>
>
>
>
> Am 04.07.2024 um 10:43 schrieb Joosep Sarapuu:
>>
>>
>> Dear all,
>>  How have you solved the safety of the rooms for fluid specimen? If the cans break, are there any grooves where the liquids run or how do you dispose of such things? What quantities have you considered in case something like that happens?
>>  Sincerely,
>> Joosep Sarapuu
>> Estonian Museum of Natural History
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Nhcoll-l mailing list
>> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
>> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwenm_1Wv$
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
>> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
>> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
>> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
>> society. See https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.spnhc.org__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwdDZiT6o$  for membership information.
>> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
>>
>
> --
> ****
>  Dirk Neumann
> Collection Manager, Hamburg
>  Postal address:
> Museum of Nature Hamburg
> Leibniz Institute for the Analysis
> of Biodiversity Change
> Dirk Neumann
> Martin-Luther-King-Platz 3
> 20146 Hamburg
> +49 40 238 317 – 628
> d.neumann at leibniz-lib.de
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.leibniz-lib.de__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwWaLhQPo$
>  --
> Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
> Postanschrift: Adenauerallee 127, 53113 Bonn, Germany
>
> Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts;
> Generaldirektion: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof (Generaldirektor), Adrian Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
> Sitz der Stiftung: Adenauerallee 160 in Bonn
> Vorsitzender des Stiftungsrates: Dr. Michael Wappelhorst
>
> --
> Stiftung Leibniz-Institut zur Analyse des Biodiversitätswandels
> Postanschrift: Adenauerallee 127, 53113 Bonn, Germany
>
> Stiftung des öffentlichen Rechts;
> Generaldirektion: Prof. Dr. Bernhard Misof (Generaldirektor), Adrian Grüter (Kaufm. Geschäftsführer)
> Sitz der Stiftung: Adenauerallee 160 in Bonn
> Vorsitzender des Stiftungsrates: Dr. Michael Wappelhorst
> _______________________________________________
> Nhcoll-l mailing list
> Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwenm_1Wv$
>
> _______________________________________________
> NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
> Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
> mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
> natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
> society. See https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.spnhc.org__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwdDZiT6o$  for membership information.
> Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.

_______________________________________________
Nhcoll-l mailing list
Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwenm_1Wv$

_______________________________________________
NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
society. See https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.spnhc.org__;!!DZ3fjg!5TyxrmuKkJ4FRPuzGeVFOGE42azphmkUi5UrHIYouncFhr2LCGsAqz8or-VdJVeEb3sZNd-_OfPTCKQGwdDZiT6o$  for membership information.
Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20240708/25913b79/attachment.html>