For the German Speakers

[beige_alert]

There is all sorts of interesting old stuff in the lab. We use 1,2-ethanedithiol for peptide synthesis. A little bit goes a long way, so the bottle we have has been in the lab longer than I have. A little bit goes a long way in terms of smell, too. It is related to the stuff they put in natural gas to give it that smell that warns of leaks before (hopefully) you have an explosion. Just opening the cabinet in which we store the closed bottle with the parafilm sealing tape around the lid is a noticeable event. Anyway, I don't know if the labeling on this bottle has anything to do with the fact that the lab director at the time grew up in West Berlin:



From Merck!

If I put some effort into it, I'm sure I could translate all that text at the bottom, but I figure it's pretty much "don't eat it, ok?"


I have no idea what "keep contents wet" is supposed to mean.


And a nice bond-line drawing.

Comments

[aryana-filker.livejournal.com]

Heheeee - that one looks familiar! :)

[lisande.livejournal.com]

but I figure it's pretty much "don't eat it, ok?"

Er... yes. Or rather: "We don't know for sure, but it might be really dangerous!" *g*
Oh, and it's inflammable.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

The only thing in the lab that is nonflammable is the water. The scariest warning label the Scary Warning Label people could come up with for the water is "Not hazardous when used according to appropriate and applicable laboratory safety standards." Also, "Protect from freezing." And, yeah, over $5/liter, more than twice what Gerolsteiner costs here.

[barbarakitten-t.livejournal.com]

water is a dangerous thing, michael...after all, cats don't like it, so it must be bad, non?????

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

That's pretty nasty stuff. What do you do, professionally? I used to do chemistry stuff and had no idea that's what you were doing.

[beige-alert.livejournal.com]

I work in this place, (http://www.biochem.mcw.edu/protein_facility/) as a chemist. I don't even think of the ethanedithiol as especially nasty. It does have, as they say, good warning properties. That is, the smell is so awe-inspiringly awful that there is no chance a spill will go unnoticed and poison unsuspecting people. If you spill it, you'll know. Everyone will know. It's 5% of the mixture we use to pull synthetic peptides off of the resin they are made on and remove the protecting groups from the amino acid side chains. There's another 5% thioanisole and 90% trifluoroacetic acid. TFA is just as strong as the familiar strong mineral acids (HCl, sulphuric, etc.) but with the added bonus of extra toxicity from the fluorine. 100% TFA gives of pretty white fumes, especially on a humid day. And even with the fluorines it does smell pretty much just like ordinary acetic acid.