Introduction
As you all know, laboratories have various chemicals and lab equipment. While the majority of the chemicals are not hazardous, some can be dangerous or cause harm if they get spilt or escape into the environment. To prevent that from happening, all labs need a chemical storage cabinet. These cabinets help organise certain things and store various chemicals in the lab in an efficient and safe manner. The safety aspect is taken care of with the laboratory chemical storage cabinets.
The storage cabinets are necessary to ensure the proper record and upkeep of lab chemicals and provide a durable storage space for them. Chemicals are substances that need to be stored under certain conditions in the lab, and storage cabinets are the right way to organise them. In this blog, we will discover how you can manage your laboratory chemical storage cabinet for optimum efficiency and easy maintenance of your lab. Let us take you on a joy ride that will give you an insight into how chemical storage cabinets provide safety in the lab.
Organising Laboratory Chemical Storage Cabinet
Now that you know what chemical storage cabinets are and how they add value to the lab, we have created a checklist on how you can organise your laboratory chemical storage cabinet and how your lab could be made safer. Maintaining and organising your laboratory helps provide a seamless experience for the person using the lab for various purposes.
1. Secure The Cabinet Access
Modern laboratories contain various hazardous chemicals that need to be handled only by an expert or an individual with good knowledge about the chemicals. As we know, various educational institutes also have labs where students can practice experiments. There is a chance they pick the wrong chemical for an experiment. You can securely lock your storage cabinet and restrict access to dangerous chemicals to certified personnel only so that there is a proper record every time anybody uses the chemicals.
2. Segregation Of Chemicals
Various categories of chemicals are segregated based on hazard level, nature, volatility, or reaction time. Each chemical class consists of flammable, corrosives, oxidisers, and toxic chemicals, which must be contained under specific conditions to prevent mishaps. To avoid such accidents, you must allocate a separate cabinet for similar chemicals to avoid mishaps like explosions releasing toxic gas or fires. Segregating the chemicals according to their hazard class takes the lab’s security to a new level.
3. Do Not Clutter The Cabinet
Choose a durable, high-quality storage cabinet resistant to corrosion and chemical spills. These cabinets will prove to be an excellent place to store your chemicals for a long time. To better organise your storage cabinets, do not clutter them with multiple chemicals. Rather, dedicate specific shelves to store the chemicals safely. Make sure that you have adequate safety protocols in the lab to quickly contain the accidents that may be caused by irregular storage of chemicals.
4. Use Secondary Containment
Don’t entirely rely on the storage cabinets for the safe upkeep of the chemicals, as a simple push to the container of the chemical can lead to spilling. To avoid circumstances like these, you need to use secondary containments like trays, boxes, or bins to limit the spills in the cabinet within the container. This way, other chemicals stored in the cabinet will not be affected by the spill, and you can easily clean the affected area to organise the storage cabinet better.
5. Labelling & Proper Documentation
Conducting lab experiments requires precise calculations and proper records of the assumptions made while doing the calculations. Similarly, the storage cabinets also require proper labelling and documentation of the stored chemicals. The labelling will help the user pick the right chemical for conducting any experiment and access only that part of the cabinet that he requires. Correct labelling also helps in knowing the stock of which chemicals are ending and which new ones need to be acquired for the lab.
6. Do Maintenance & Inspection
To efficiently organise your lab using chemical storage cabinets, you need to properly store the chemicals in the mandatory environment stated by the manufacturer, keep a check on who is using them and do regular cleaning of the cabinets. This maintenance exercise of the storage cabinet will help you determine the state of the chemicals and take corrective action in case any cabinet or secondary containment needs repair or replacement. Ignoring the conditions of storage cabinets can lead to accidents and deteriorate the durability of the storage cabinets.
Conclusion
The future of science lies in the hands of young students and researchers, and providing a well-organised lab will help them conduct studies, research, and experiments, which will take science to a new level. Modern laboratories have many dangerous chemicals, and there is a dire need for the safety of the students and researchers. That’s where the storage cabinets come into the picture, as they help organise the lab’s dangerous chemicals. Get yourself a durable and heavy-duty laboratory chemical storage cabinet that can store all the hazardous chemicals for your lab and add to the safe environment for conducting experiments.
Santech Labs offers you state-of-the-art solutions to organise your lab and conduct experiments in a systematic and safe manner. We offer you a wide range of products that consist of premium quality lab furniture, storage cabinets, and fume hoods that help in organising your lab and make it easy to maintain. We offer highly customisable products for your labs. Contact us now if you also want to have the best lab furniture and durable storage cabinet to store & organise chemicals, equipment, and lab records.
