willowbyrn

Industrial accident #1073

Our lab tech thought that our deionized water tank needed to be sterilized so she decided to autoclave it. After consulting the catalogue she concluded that it was heat resistant and would survive the 130C & 15 psi treatment. No one predicted exactly how wrong she was. The picture above is the remains of our old tank resting below our new (autoclavable) tank. The clean area in the middle is where we poured liquid nitrogen on to the plastic and I beat it with a hammer into oblivion, in an attempt to break off the plastic. I contemplated trying to sell the resulting disaster on ebay under the title Industrial Accident #1073, but the boss likes to have it around to remind us to read the right page of the catalogue.