Safety

Proposal

Safety is a priority at the Australian Synchrotron. The beamline staff and safety team need to know the risks of all aspects of your experiment. We need to see that you also understand them and will work with safety as a priority. This includes both the safety of working with sample environments as well as your samples. Note: These requirements may be different to those at your home institution.

Safety information to include in the proposal & EA

• The specific types of PPE needed to safely work with your samples and the sample environment

• How to clean up a spill

• How to dispose/removal of the sample after your experiment, i.e. a capillary in the sharps bin or taking samples back to your home institution.

• How to safely work around high or low temperature environments (if applicable), i.e. at what temperature will you change samples.

• How to work safety with your specific samples

• How to work safely around the gases you are using (if applicable)

• For high temperature gas flow experiments, two people will be at the beamline at all times actively monitoring the sample.

• Secondary containment for radioactive materials. **Also see additional information below.

• Evidence that you will not be producing prohibited or restricted chemicals during your experiment

• Is your electrical equipment tested and tagged (if applicable)

It is always better to provide more detail rather than less. If your proposal is successful, then more information to show you understand the risks and how to work safely will be required on the EA. The EA will be rejected if essential information is not included.

Experiment Authorisation (EA)

Detailed information on how to complete the EA can be found here and how to complete the EA sample spreadsheet.

Chemicals & Samples

There are some chemicals and sample types that cannot be brought onsite or that require additional documentation to be approval before the experiment can proceed. These are:

Prohibited and restricted chemicals and samples

Prohibited chemicals and samples are not permitted onsite under all circumstances and proposals requiring or reactions that produce these will be considered not technically feasible. Experiments requesting restricted chemicals and samples first need to be discussed with the Clayton Safety Team. Check the list of prohibited and restricted carcinogens and other prohibited and restricted chemicals and samples.

Radioactive materials

All safety aspects will need to be discussed in the proposal otherwise it may be marked technically infeasible. Users will need to provide details on:

1. Type of radioactive material.

2. The activity of each sample and the total activity of all the radioactive material to be brought to the facility.

3. Details of the form of the radioactive materials (for example: mineral samples in glass vials).

4. Details of how the radioactive source(s) will be used in the experiment.

5. Information about the procedure for dealing with the breach of a sample containing radioactive material.