To clean or not to clean?

And make sure your outside when you use it or very ventalated.

 

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whom are you talkin to?

 

Acetone will not fume when added to water. Acetone and water are infinitely miscible.

 

Well whatever happened it wasn't a pleasant experience for me. People are right to recommend using a well ventilated area.

 

What happened to you?

 

It was a while back, but I remember adding some solution to it and it acted quite violently, bubbling up. I thought I added distilled water to it, but maybe not. Anyway, I should have mixed it in the fume cupboard but I was feeling lazy.

 

You weren't very careful in the lab you were working in and this might have cost someone else their life. Be more careful in the future. I am writing this as a scientist who has had two close brushes do the ignorance or laziness on the part of someone else in the lab. One event dealt with sulfuric acid and the other with sodium hydroxide.

 

Chemistry is Interesting when you play "Reagent Roulette".

I remember how we used to use Osmium Tetroxide in my Electron Microscopy lab in graduate school. Its a wonder no one got killed. Ethyl Ether for the Drosophila lab was another interesting experience.

 

Tom's post reminded me of when my college had a PhD in psychology who thought that instead of just "babysitting" the chem class for an absentee Chem Prof., he would demonstrate that mixing the correct concentration and amounts of Sodium Hydroxide and Hydrochloric acid together, it would just form salt water. So the idiot did and then took a drink of it. He forgot about the heat of reaction as it was close to boiling and he sprayed the whole lecture room and had to wear burn cream in hs mouth for a week. Needless to say, he didn't play Chemist anymore!!!

 

I always kept osmium tetroxide in the hood and kept the hood on at all times. However, when I had to weigh out something like potassium cyanide I always made certain that no one around me was using any type of acids.

 

Speaking of dangerous chemistry, there's a substance used to clean semiconductor vapor deposition chambers which you don't want to be anywhere near, let alone clean coins with.

 

Clean the coins,mark as cleaned and nobody can be mad.You get "better" looking and feelng coins and if you do sell them,the buyer is aware.BE GENTLE,clean ,rinse ,pat dry and protect.
PS. this is NOT recomended for all coins.

 

Yeah, I'm usually very careful, almost to the point of OCD. I work in a bio lab so we don't tend to use too many strong chemicals. It'd just kill the biological samples. Chemistry labs are probably far worse. I can't imagine using cyanide compounds. Acetone is bad enough for me . Does tend to make you a little complacent though. People rarely wear safety googles, even when the acids inevitably come out...

As for the coins, the green PVC gunk came off really easily. Too easily in fact, so I got carried away wiping them. Probably ruined them, but I've learnt my lesson and at least they weren't high value.

EDIT: I don't know how that red thumbs down keeps appearing on my posts...

 

Biological labs have their own dangers, as you are well aware, and these dangers can often show their effects well after exposure. I've worked with significant quantities of virus and radiation and excessive exposure to either of those would not necessarily be known immediately. It's good that you are normally very careful.

 

Very true. Thankfully I don't work with radiation and the viruses are replication deficient ones (with GFP). Although, if I start glowing green under UV light I'll know why.

 

Personally I'd clean it.