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Asked by 396mede29 to Greg, Jen, Laura, Mobeen, Paul on 7 Mar 2016.
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Greg Melia answered on 7 Mar 2016:
There are lots! Caesium’s pretty bad, as it explodes on contact with water. See this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNdijknRxfU
The most dangerous chemical I’ve worked with is Hydrofluoric Acid. It was dangerous because it can corrode glass, and because it is poisonous as well as corrosive.
Most of the scientists here in the medical physics zone work with radioactive chemicals in one way or another. These are dangerous because they can give you radiation poisoning, so have to be handled carefully and kept in heavy, sealed containers. Jen works with them quite a lot, so she will probably wear a dosimeter all the time when she’s at work, so she can monitor how much radiation she gets exposed to.
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Laura Haworth answered on 7 Mar 2016:
There is lots. I don’t which is the most dangerous though.
Nicotine (found in cigarettes) is a pretty nasty chemical and we get to see the effects this can cause on our patients. -
Paul O'Mahoney answered on 7 Mar 2016:
I’m really not sure. Arsenic is really quite dangerous to humans, and I think too much of any chemical is going to be bad for you!
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Mobeen Ali answered on 7 Mar 2016:
The most dangerous chemical that I’ve used is called Formalin. I is used it to pickle a brain but it can be used for any other body part. If you were to breath in any of its fumes, it could give you throat or lung cancer.
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Jen Lowe answered on 9 Mar 2016:
Fluorine is quite nasty. We got strict safety talks when using that in an undergraduate lab. Radioactive substances can be dangerous because you don’t know it’s radioactive unless you are measuring it, and some have very very long half lives. Most things can be dangerous in the right circumstances. Like nitrogen – it’s most of the air we breath (quite safely), but if it was 100% of the atmosphere we would die (no oxygen) and divers get ‘the bends’ from nitrogen forming bubbles in their tissues if they decompress too quickly…
Comments
Jen commented on :
Yes, I wear a dosimeter at work (a small plastic badge). It measures the radiation dose I receive at work. Generally most people have doses so small they are below the detection level of the dosemeter. In our hospital, the people getting the highest doses are probably radiopharmacists who dispense the radioactive liquids which are injected into patients for diagnostic nuclear medicine tests. If your annual dose is high enough you have to become a ‘classified’ worker and you have annual health checks and stricter constraints.