Important Laboratory aspects?

[DrLucifer]

Hello bees, how are you all?
Swim is now at a stage where he feels that he owns all the equipment necessary for a variety of applications.
Although he doesnt own all the precursors he desires, these will come in time with careful planning, no doubt.
The reason swim has posted is because he wants to hear the opinions of other working bees in similiar situations.
Swim would like to know what fellow bees consider to be the 3 most important aspects in a laboratory enviroment, and of course, why they think described aspects are important.
This is not a specific question and there are no wrong asnswers so to speak. Swim is merely trying to absorb advice that has been collected in the field by fellow bees.
For the moment, swims applications are mainly pill extractions and meth reactions. Apart from the associated financiial benefits which MAY occur from such activities, these were designed to give swim the necessary practical experience so he could then progress to more complex procedures at a later date. Alas, swim is preparing to tackle those more in depth procedures, such as al/hg reductive aminations, P2P via phenylacetic acid and possibly via the "Electro" method that swim has just stumbled upon.
Fentanyl, 4-MAR and possibly LSD are all on the cards, but these will be attempted after another round of experience has been gained. Dont get me wrong, I am not asking for advice on the mentioned procedures, I am basically fishing for general advice that will benefit my, crusade!  
Bear in mind, the 3 most important aspects in a lab question is still the main topic, but anything that you guys wish to throw in as 'extra' will be appreciated.
No advice, whether it be positive or negative, will be passed up. Thankyou for your time.

[ApprenticeCook]

3 most important factors in any lab would be
1) SAFETY - safe storage of equiptment and reagents, even though it is a clandestine lab in your garage you should store things correctly as documented in msds documents, and eqiptment is cleaned after every use (to prevent accidental cross contamination) and stored safe and secure (to prevent breakage, misplacements etc)
If you dont get this right, give up now because you will end up being found like many other labs, from the explosion which follows.....
2) CLEAN - i hate a dirty lab, cant think... must be clean benches, glassware, everything in its place after use, no reagents laying around... if you use it, then put it back you can limit the amount of possible cross-contamination of reagents and possible problems in the lab with things that shouldnt be mixing... mixing...
3) QUALITY - anything made is as best purity as can be attained with the availible equiptment and reagents... now some people may not be able to get hold of analytical reagents so do with what you can but try your best to purify the reagents before use, and clean the product several times...

Thats my three.... that what you wanted?

oh oh and also efficiency... but thats 4... oh well..

[carbocation]

For ANY lab work my 3 main considerations are:

1: Knowledge- Know as much as possible about the procedure- reagents, reaction mechanisms, products, byproducts, energetics of reaction etc...

2: Safety- Do a risk assesment when planning your procedure. I know its the sort of thing your made to do at college but it is worth it. Know the flash points of solvents, know the toxicity of reagents and possible toxic byproducts of the interaction of reagents. Decide how to minimise risk factors before embarking on your experiment- eg: use ice baths/ hotplates/ fume cupboards. Wear goggles, gloves, heavy boots, a labcoat. For even more hazardous procedures consider neoprene aprons, respirators etc..

3: Take pride in your work: unless your some redneck meth "cook" working in a motel bathroom you should be
absolutely meticulous with every procedure. Dont work in
a sloppy way, make exact measurements and calculations and record everything as it happens. Pretend that your being assesed for your final exams.

there are also 4th, 5th, 6th factors as well but you did say 3! I would say that another important factor is to respect the environment and try to conciously dispose of waste and equipment and recycle solvents.

[DrLucifer]

This is precisely the information (wisdom) i am seeking, you guys have hit the nail on the head, and for that i am very thankful. Many good suggestions, hopefully more to come.
These ideas will basically be used as foundations, and from there, proper measures can be taken to ensure that swim operates in a safe, responsible and enviromentally friendly way. Recycling solvents is a key issue and this will be investigated and implemented on a large scale.
Swim is now experiencing first hand copious amounts of solvents & reagents turning into waste, and it is quite daunting. They really do build up quickly, although swim has just been stockpiling as he is dubious about disposal.
Thanks again guys, the tips are very welcome and like i said earlier, I hope some other busy bees can offer their wisdom to an eager novice, with a will to succeed.  

[biotechdude]

Clean - A clean and orgainsed lab is important for clarity of mind and lessens the chance of 'a fuckup' (nice scientific term).  If you spill something, its no dramas then.  Also get LOTS of paper towels...you'll need them by the truckload to maintain the cleanliness.

Contained - It shouldn't emit excess (and suspicious) noise ("..clang clang clang with the trolley.."), smells (love thy neighbours xylene), activity (people tweaking at 2am).

And lastly, if renting the premisis be careful of excess water usage and the like, and always be present and prepared for inspections and maintanence visits.

[Chimitant]

That´s what it all comes down to...Be sure to use the right equipment, install it in a proper way, have good ventilation, make sure you have an exit in case something goes wrong, use protection gear, know how to handle the chemicals, make sure that you know what you´re doing and what can go wrong (which also implies that you should know what to do when the shit hits the fan!)

And if you synthesize for consumption: quality above quantity!

[unionpacific]

In addition to everyones thoughts on being clean and safety, I'm hoping your not gonna be setting up a clan lab in your living room or kitchen.  I suggest purchasing a respirator similar to this NIOSH approved one below, they are a cheap price to pay if your health is important to you.

search your local hardware store at the paint section or use the internet. On a sidenote, wearing this mask for long periods of time will gather alot of moisture inside the mask, you can put a folded paper towel inside of it to absorb this.

Keep in mind these things work so well you may forget the fumes of solvents you're dealing with are probably reaking the whole area where your workspace is located, I2 fumes will also irritate your eyes, some form of properly venting the fumes away from joe citizen's house should be taken under consideration, mother nature can do this for you if the conditions are right.

You should also pay attention to when your going to start refluxing and roughly what time of day it's going to be completed, and estimate how long it's going to take you to complete all the procedures depending on which scale your on  and I'm guessing swim is performing everything by himself, you also don't want mr or ms.x stumble onto swim out of coincidence to see swim obviously affiliated with some type of chemistry manufacturing activity.

Be sober and only listen to music at a normal volume ONLY if it's completely safe, you don't want to underestimate being completely safe because when music is playing you can't hear the small noises like footsteps if the music was off.

Other notes:
Store glassware and any precursors/solvents/acids/bases strategically, practice assembling your lab quickly, and disassembling, clean the glassware(take your time) and store everything you don't need after the main procedures have been completed (so you only have a evap dish and some dried solvents to rextallize with and anything else you need in your workspace.) take your time and do everything efficient. You can test the washed, finished raw product after no evidence of lab activity is in your workspace this means fumes also. (rextallizing properly is definitely worth the wait.) and don't be bummed if your first rxn was a failure, learn by practice.


A note about being sober: what if you got busted and your sitting behind bars thinking what you could have done to prevent this from happening. Sure it sounds fun to get twacked out and manufacture what your on, but my opinion being sober makes you think and hear clearly, you can complete everything from start to finish without bugging out or fucking up a simple procedure.

hope this helps, good luck.

NOTE: I belive there is also a couple of good threads about lab ethics on TFSE.

EDIT: I forgot to add you should have a new fire extinguisher next to you when the DAY comes, water doesn't do to well with NP fires.

[DrLucifer]

[Phlegm]

Mine is Personal Safety. A lot of the wise points made by others on this thread also naturally follow from personal safety.

1) Ventilation in my book is the single most important issue for a chemist. This can't be over emphasized. Have an exhaust fan running every second you're in the lab. It also is convenient to have a fan that on high setting can turnover all the air in your lab quickly.

2) Odors are gonna tip off neighbors in a big way. This is a tough one that is kind of in direct opposition with my first point. I've fabricated some activated carbon filtration set ups with some success for VOC's, but they don't work well with halogen acids. Probably the best bet is to do your stuff at night, when there are fewer active people to detect odors.

3) Conceal your work. This one sort goes in the face of my second point. If you're up at 3 am working to minimize the detection of odors, doesn't that look kind of odd? Well, the best we can do here is seal up any cracks in the shed/garage lab where light might leak. I'm spastic about this one. The pigs employ a helicopter regularly in my area and I really don't want them noticing that building that always seems to be lit up at 2 am. I also have the walls and ceiling of my lab entirely covered with 3'' of styrofoam to keep noises to a minimum; works as good insulator as well.

4) Listen to a pig scanner at all times. Tune in to only the frequency that covers your part of town as well as the undercover frequencies. I've never had a pig called to my lab, but there have been several instances when I knew the pigs were heading to neighbors and businesses that are located near me. That is important shit to know.

5) And finally fire. Something like 1 out of 8 labs are busted due to fires. Wouldn't that be the shits? It's hard enough out there without getting yourself busted because your lab catches fire. Prevention is best, but sooner or later you WILL have a fire. Thus, you've got to have a charged extingiusher at hand. Also wet towels, bucket of sand, bucket of water, and a garden hose are good things to have ready. The last two double as eyewash stations.

I guess a lot of strategies clandestine labs use to conceal their presence contradict one another. It's a Bitch, isn't it?

[ApprenticeCook]

A recent report on clandestine labs in oz stated that 8 out of 10 lab busts are due to them being found out after an explosion, the other 2 are undercover work and tip-offs by companies and suppliers etc.

Pretty bad hey... but yeah fire is bad, so have everything to deal with it at hand.

[honeysolution]

I can't talk from experience in meth, but I CAN give some advice (from experience in making explosives) concerning:
a)safety and
b)stealth

a) Safety has already been mentioned. I would advise at least a fire exstinguisher, a big arse drum of water (if doing any work with acids, and particularly NH3), and a fumehood. (I designed / built mine with a CO2 release integrated)

b)Stealth. My experience with smelly compounds has attracted attention in the past, which prompted me to build my own gas scrubber - it removes any vapours that get sucked up out of the fume hood from the exhaust (ie clean air out, no smell).
Nowadays I use enclosed systems whenever possible (no evap of 500mL of tol/tone/etc in the open air 4 me!). I have neighbours - really fuckin nosey cunts!

I would say "stealth features" would be nearly as important as safety - it's fine to be able to make your batch of honey safely, but no good if the pigs are at your door when you're done cookin...

[ApprenticeCook]

I designed / built mine with a CO2 release integrated

So you have a CO2 extinguisher built into the hood? cool.

And a gas scrubber? even cooler, so whats this in your shed? haha, like it lots, next you need to deck the place out as a clean room and when people come to the door do it in your full biohaz suit!

Your right though, everything to cover up what your doing without looking suss (ie too obvious your hiding someting) is the key, leave no tracks.

[Phlegm]

Honeysolution,

I would be interested in the design of your gas scrubber. Care to elaborate, please?

[honeysolution]

Sorry I took so long to post this guys (had PC probs...)
I hope this gives some idea of how this thing works...

My gas scrubber takes air from the fume hood through a PVC pipe (80mm), and depending on how I set it up, puts that gas through three different stages:

a)condensor
b)bubbler
c)filter

The "stages" are built in PVC - inlet and exhaust on each are 80mm PVC, and can be connected in any order (and seperately).

a) The condensor stage is mainly used when I do any work envolving the evaporation of solvents. I do this with a closed system, so not much solvent really gets sucked up - it's really to there to catch as much as possible so that it (the solvent) doesn't end up in the filter, or in the bubbler where it would end up in the drain. It does do a good job though, and helps with the smell. It has a PVC outer/cooling jacket, and a copper inner tube (I soldered up a sheet of copper for it). It's very different in design to what you use for a reflux (or making ammonia, etc); the copper inner tube has a stack of copper fins (that look like those fins you'd see on the back of an airconditioner) with copper tubes poking through them - these run the coolant through, and keep the fins cool (I use acetone cooled with dry ice). I soldered the whole thing together -takes a lot of time, and patience - but u don't have any worries when ur on it
There's a few more details - a "u" bend w/ a small bit of silicone tube poking from the bottom to let out condensed liquids, etc.

b) The bubbler. A big PVC (you guessed it) chamber w/ water in it (gets replaced at a slow rate, like a condensor would). A pipe leading into it from the top, straight into the depths of the water. With lots of holes in it. Lots of little bubbles - dissolves a lot of nasties. (NB You could add HCL if you were to be sucking up some ammonia into this setup; but probably don't want to pump that shit through a pump unless it was all plastic, might get away with it.) I used a centrifical type blower to suck out the gases from the hood, and it makes plenty of pressure for the bubbler. (Doesn't actually need that much, so long as you have PLENTY of little holes for the gas to go through.)

C) The filter. This is like a BIG drying tube (UTFSE), only with activated charcoal in it (instead of NaOH / etc). Simple. Effective!

And after the air has gone through all of that, it's not clean enough to pump straight back into the lab - but it doesn't EVER let out enough smell for the neighbours to know what I'm up to. Enough said.

Hope this is of use!

[ApprenticeCook]

Deleted, i was wrong as pointed out post below....

sorry bud. Should read before posting.

[Newton]

If you take all this effort to remove smells and smoke why not pump it outside?

That what he does, from what I read. 'it's not clean enough to pump straight back into the lab', that's what he said.

Nice setup, honeysolution, very well constructed. Congrats.

[Phlegm]

Sounds pretty elaborate, and to tell you the truth I'm having trouble picturing the whole setup in my mind. I am truly interested in this apparatus, and would like to get more specifics, but I  have to be honest and tell you I'm skeptical as to the performance of it as a unit. Probably my doubt comes from my experience with an activated carbon setup I made myself, which does work. But I have to use a motor and squirrel cage that are both pretty large in order to be able to suck the air through the 3" layer of carbon. I really don't end up using it much because it's really fucking noisy and the exhaust velocity is so high that it ends up blowing shit all over the lab. If I understand your set up correctly, you are running all three of the components in series, so it's hard for me to understand how you generate a sufficient air stream to operate it.

Do you have the interest and time to maybe post some diagrams? That would be most helpful.