Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDSs) are supplied by the manufacturer and are used to evaluate the hazards of a chemical. A Material Safety Data Sheet (MSDS) is designed to provide students, workers and emergency personnel with the proper procedures for handling or working with a particular substance. MSDS's include information such as physical data (melting point, boiling point, flash point etc.), toxicity, health effects, first aid, reactivity, storage, disposal, protective equipment, and spill/leak procedures. These are of particular use if a spill or other accident occurs. Most hazardous chemicals ship with an MSDS. These days using the internet to locate an MSDS is usually the quickest and most up to date way of obtaining information about a product or chemical.
There are several MSDS sites available on the WWW:
The OSHA standard 29 CFR 1910.1200 requires that chemical manufacturers, importers and distributors label their containers of hazardous chemicals. Therefore, each container coming onto the Rice campus should already be labeled, tagged or marked with the following information:
No unlabeled chemical storage containers should be permitted to exist in the laboratory, at the job site, or to be placed in any company vehicle. All portable containers shall be labeled similar to the original container, including the name and hazard classification of the material.
A chemical inventory list should be maintained in the laboratory at all times. When new chemicals are obtained, the chemical name should be entered in the chemical inventory log.