Alchemy 101, and still the only 20 thread you need to read.

[Sunnie Lynn]

The best advice someone has ever given me is DON'T GET COMFORTABLE. This is true for any job, but especially true in trucking and when working with chemicals. The first time you don't do the pre-trip the right way is going to be the time something is screwed up and then it's on your arse. Don't bother double checking for the eye wash station? That's gunna be the time something sprays in your face an everyone is frantically running around for a hose that may or may not have clean water. No ppe? Hose explodes. Forget to take of an earring and it ends up in a giant vat of food grade product and your boss and customer want an explanation why they have to throw away $100,000 worth of vegetable oil. Label your Nitrogen every time, every place you're supposed to or someone ends up dead. Following your safety protocol every. single. time. will be what saves your butt and makes you the right person for the job. So unless you want to look like Deadpool (and let's face it, not everyone can pull that off..) PPE, PPE, PPE! Working with hazmat is less about being experienced and being a hard worker and more about being that person who has integrity and follow through.
end rant.
(who is this chick that thinks she can just stick her nose in everyone else posts and give her two cents? Guh... the nerve)

 

[Rodger]

@Duck, Careful for static electricity! Acetylene bombs are fun but...........boom! My cousin filled a metal 5 gallon can with it and it went off before he got 100 feet away. Miraculously he never was touched by shrapnel. Not a whole lotta thinking going on there.​

 

[Southern Fried]

Well, I'm heading out shortly with a TDI load for Frankfort IN. This stuff is dangerous as hell. Carries skull and crossbones Poison placard for a reason. It will kill your butt; do lung damage if you breathe it in. MUST use air tank and full ppe when dealing with this stuff. No joke. Everything about this load has to be done perfect. I'm one of only 5 of our drivers who are currently allowed to even haul this stuff. Just too many "problems" with the "newbies" over the past year. Yes, they are trained to do it, but like everything else they're taught, they have the "who GAF" attitude. So, rather than having to "re-route" one of us "old guys" to "rescue" a "refused load" at a customer cause the "newb" showed up without the TDI Kit (hoses, guages,etc for the air tank) or with out the air tank itself or whatever other dumbazz thing, they just won't send a "rookie" with a load. Now the few "rooks" we have left are whining about "not getting the good paying loads". Lord, I hate PC hiring practices.

Folks, this is why I do not support hiring right out of driving school for Chem Haulers. 90% of them don't really know how to drive a rig, let alone deal with the liquid loads and the responsibility that goes with extreme hazmat. If you must do tank, go find food-grade or water or something.... that will not do harm to dozens of people if you Fark up. Do that a couple of years and learn your "grown-ups" attitudes, then come see us.

BTW, poison TDI is used in making "hard plastics" and things like "memory foam". So, right now you're sitting on it and typing on it. Feeling comfy are we????

 

[Keendriver]

Well, I'm heading out shortly with a TDI load for Frankfort IN. This stuff is dangerous as hell. Carries skull and crossbones Poison placard for a reason. It will kill your butt; do lung damage if you breathe it in. MUST use air tank and full ppe when dealing with this stuff. No joke. Everything about this load has to be done perfect. I'm one of only 5 of our drivers who are currently allowed to even haul this stuff. Just too many "problems" with the "newbies" over the past year. Yes, they are trained to do it, but like everything else they're taught, they have the "who GAF" attitude. So, rather than having to "re-route" one of us "old guys" to "rescue" a "refused load" at a customer cause the "newb" showed up without the TDI Kit (hoses, guages,etc for the air tank) or with out the air tank itself or whatever other dumbazz thing, they just won't send a "rookie" with a load. Now the few "rooks" we have left are whining about "not getting the good paying loads". Lord, I hate PC hiring practices.

Folks, this is why I do not support hiring right out of driving school for Chem Haulers. 90% of them don't really know how to drive a rig, let alone deal with the liquid loads and the responsibility that goes with extreme hazmat. If you must do tank, go find food-grade or water or something.... that will not do harm to dozens of people if you Fark up. Do that a couple of years and learn your "grown-ups" attitudes, then come see us.

BTW, poison TDI is used in making "hard plastics" and things like "memory foam". So, right now you're sitting on it and typing on it. Feeling comfy are we????

I do not get the "GAF" attitude someone would have hauling this type O' sh*t.

I know drivers will have this attitude pulling a load of dog food/shingles/groceries....whatever. But to have it pulling something that will kill you dead?

It would seem as though only people with the proper attitude/motivation would even want to get into chem hauling.

 

[Sunnie Lynn]

I do not get the "GAF" attitude someone would have hauling this type O' sh*t.

I know drivers will have this attitude pulling a load of dog food/shingles/groceries....whatever. But to have it pulling something that will kill you dead?

It would seem as though only people with the proper attitude/motivation would even want to get into chem hauling.

Unfortunately I think the opposite is true, they see a difference in pay and jump in without realizing there is a reason it pays more... there is more work and higher expectations.

 

[Tazz]

^^^^^^^Ding ding ding ding.

Like anything the more dangerous it gets the better it pays.

 

[Daria]

I have worked for many years around hazardous chemicals, but not nearly on the same scale you are talking about. I have a 17 year old scar covering the entire circumference of my left wrist from a formic acid burn, and that was a few drops that got under a watch that I didn't take off fast enough when I was at the sink.

Another thing to be concerned with is becoming sensitized to certain chemicals if you are careless about your exposure. You may be ok the first or second time you are around the stuff, but break out in rashes or have other issues one day.

 

[Duck]

@Duck, Careful for static electricity! Acetylene bombs are fun but...........boom! My cousin filled a metal 5 gallon can with it and it went off before he got 100 feet away. Miraculously he never was touched by shrapnel. Not a whole lotta thinking going on there.​

I had a plastic newspaper bag go off in my hand as I was filling it.

Good thing I was drunk or it probably would have hurt.

Seriously though, I was surprised it didn't do any damage. It felt like sunburn on my hand for a while, and my ears were ringing for a while but that was it.

And those things are LOUD.

 

[Sinister]

Unfortunately I think the opposite is true, they see a difference in pay and jump in without realizing there is a reason it pays more... there is more work and higher expectations.

I'm actually taking a huge pay cut to come here. I was pretty much at the top of my game in heavy haul. I was also right up against my anniversary date, so I may have even gotten a raise this year, but I doubt it, especially after my last argument with the boss and my realization of his actual, long term opinion of me.

Anyway, I finished orientation today. I'm waiting for a call from my home terminal about when I begin training in the actual job, but I'm thinking that's going to be Monday, and I'm told it's at least ten days.

They were nice enough to extend my room a night, so I don't have to leave until morning.

There's a 50 question test, and I got one question wrong. You're not supposed to smoke within 25 feet of flammable, or combustible. I wrote 250 feet, and the instructor jokingly put a decimal so it read 25.0 feet, and gave me a 100 anyway. At the end of the test (like a freakin half hour later after all the other folks had finished...crying out loud folks he's only been saying this shit all week...why did this take any more than say, ten minutes) I asked about the actual number, 25 feet, and said I do not consider myself to have gotten a 100 on that test.

The entire room looked at me like I had 4 heads.

I dunno.

Next week I start OJT, and apparently there's a lot of Peroxide that runs out of this terminal. Did you know that Peroxide is serious hazmat shit?

The stuff you buy in the store is so diluted, it's basically nothing. But past say, 20% purity, it becomes a super dissolvent of things like, clothing...and flesh, and you know...pavement and stuff.

So yeah...pure Hydrogen Peroxide is no joke.

 

[Daria]

3% aqueous hydrogen peroxide is in your medicine cabinet. 30% aqueous is the most commonly found in lab fridges (500 mL bottle), stabilized. Aldrich sells up to 50% aqueous, stabilized.

Hydrogen peroxide solution, 50 wt. % in H2O, stabilized | H2O2 | Sigma-Aldrich

Yes, it is no joke.

Arkema runs? They have a peroxides division.

 

[mndriver]

yop, I worked with 96% hydrogen peroxide when I was a process engineer. Some serious shit there. Worse than most acids. Only thing that scared me more was gaseous HCL in the laser welder. When you have alarms that are set to go off on parts per billion, not nice shite.

 

[Sinister]

I don't think I'll be pulling peroxide right off the bat. I'm sure it will be non haz loads for a good while until I prove I'm not a moron...

 

[mndriver]

It took me 2 years to get my processes I was in charge of. And then there were 6 months of actual chemistry classes for 6 hours a week prior to actually taking over.

 

[Duck]

I don't think I'll be pulling peroxide right off the bat. I'm sure it will be non haz loads for a good while until I prove I'm not a moron...

Don't load hydrochloric acid into an aluminum tanker.

Something bad might happen.

 

[Sinister]

@Mike told me Sulfuric is pretty bad stuff, and usually really caustic and corrosive stuff is hauled in dedicated trailers.

 

[mndriver]

peroxide was neutralized with water.


large copious amounts of water.


Acids are primarily lacking of hydrogen atoms. So that is why you add water to acid and base to water.

Acids react quickly with the hydrogen in water. So you give it small amounts to begin with.

 

[Daria]

Sulfuric acid plus paper

 

[mndriver]

the processes I worked with basically were making etched printed circuit boards.

we'd start with blank stainless steel and then etch the dielectric material to it, then the copper, then nickel, then gold then insulation to it.

Then etch the material into the final component.

All these for the suspension arms for the read/write head in your computer hard drive.

Product Overview

 

[Rigjockey]

Have they covered load securment or is that OJT? Like, how many load bars per thousand gallons?

 

[mndriver]

there's some rather fun chemicals out there.

hydrogen chloride gas is a rather nasty one to work with.

we had a couple of rooms I swear it destroyed my lungs worse than any smoking did.

The main chemicals in the room were a nickel and sulphuric acid acid solution. The Sulphuric acid were brought in 55 gal barrels. We had to wear respirators when we mixed the bath.