Material Safety Data Sheets
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are part of the hazards communications standard (Federal Standard 29 CFR 1910.1200). The MSDS is your guide to working with chemicals safely.
They must be provided by the manufacturer and we are required to have a MSDS for each chemical at Grice. They are located in the GML conference room (106) and are organized alphabetically by room.
Students, faculty and staff are required to read and understand the MSDS prior to use of any hazardous chemical. Training on the interpretation of MSDS content is provided in the required lab safety training.
To facilitate hazards communication, each MSDS is divided into similar sections:
- Product and company identification
- Composition
- Hazards identifications
- First aid measures
- Fire fighting measures
- Accidental release measures
- Handling and storage
- Exposure controls and personal protection
- Physical and chemical properties
- Stability and reactivity
- Toxicological information
- Ecological information
- Disposal considerations
- Transport information
- Regulations
- Other information
The MSDSs will have standard abbreviations to communicate exposure levels and chemical properties. Some terms⁄abbreviations that are important for you to understand are listed below.
PEL = permissible exposure limit
C = ceiling limit
LEL = lower explosive limit
STEL = short term exposure limit (15 minutes)
TWA = time weighed average
TLV = threshold limit value
OSHA provides a glossary for these terms. There are good guides to reading an MSDS available online.
There are numerous resources to look up a chemical MSDS on online. You can go directly to a vender like VWR or Fisher Scientific .
You can use a MSDS launch site like MSDS-Search or MSDS on the Internet. There are also commercial and university sites available.