I haven't found a good place to look up fire diamonds for all sorts of materials. I've found them for common school lab items like aluminum shot,
ethanol, and acetone, but not for less common chemicals (I've been looking for ones for europium, gadolinium, and terbium for a pretty long time).
Anyway, where is the best place to find compact safety information that can be placed on a small label? Is it fine to use the MSDS of a chemical and
then choose warning symbols accordingly?Manifest - 9-5-2014 at 13:32
Wikipedia articles of compounds have fire diamonds, you can right click, copy image source.Brain&Force - 9-5-2014 at 15:38
Not all Wiki articles contain fire diamonds. Especially not those for the elements.chemrox - 9-5-2014 at 16:43
I was looking for a key and template for making fire diamonds. Haven't found a good site yet.smaerd - 9-5-2014 at 18:54
WolframAlpha has a pretty decent widgetTexium - 9-5-2014 at 19:44
Well, I just tested out that widget and it seems to work well for simple stuff, but doesn't leave you any better off than Wikipedia will.numos - 11-5-2014 at 09:33
Fire diamonds are great as an easy hazard recognition (for instance there is a spill, if it's a 0-0-0, then you can shrug it off otherwise you might
take precautions, say specifically against fire if its a 2-4-1) , but they don't work so great to really know the compound. I use them to label all my
chemicals and I was creating a label for gold, which apparently has a health hazard of 2 - WTF? By that logic chloroform has the same toxicity of
Gold.
Also the NFPA 704 (or fire diamonds) are not an official way to categorize chemicals. NFPA or National fire protection association tests and
determines the values for the chemicals.
You cannot publicly view all the chemical labels online, however you can buy the official NFPA 704 handbook, which lists all chemicals that have been
currently recognized by the NFPA (this still does not include all substances, as some simply don't have a rating as of today).
Why are nickel and osmium rated 4 for flammability?!
and Magnesium is a 1.... who knows, they had their reasons, but like I stated, these are not the most useful in knowing a compound.gdflp - 11-5-2014 at 17:25
Magnesium is a 1 in what form, a brick of magnesium isn't very flammable, but the powdered stuff sure is. The MSDS can vary depending on what form of
the compound it is referring to.Brain&Force - 11-5-2014 at 18:55
Anyone know of a good place to make a fire diamond label where the numbers are centered, in case I want to label hazards in a mini-MSDS? I would
probably have to use a different design because the normal fire diamonds are covered by a government standard.
I've personally seen MSDS sheets vary wildly between recommendations. One MSDS for terbium says that it "must be stored under an inert argon
atmosphere at all times," and "take all waste to the appropriate waste-processing facility for disposal." another says "No special precautions
required. For disposal, ignite pieces of metal and dispose of the oxide powder in the trash."numos - 11-5-2014 at 21:26
These are, in my opinion, far less effective than the fire diamond. If I see a 4 on the diamond I know to be extra careful and should probably consult
the MSDS again. If I see the "flammable liquids" pictogram, I have no idea how flammable it is - could be mildly flammable like diluted ethanol or
could be scarily flammable like carbon disulfide; the pictogram doesn't tell you anything. Unfortunately we'll be forced to switch over to the new
system at my work.
Note another stupidity in section 4.3.2: "The signal word indicates the relative degree of severity a hazard. The signal words used in the GHS are
"Danger" for the more severe hazards, and
"Warning" for the less severe hazards. "
This is the only indication of severity on the new labels. I saw another document that stated most people become "confused" by more than these two
words, so these are the only labels and only one may be used per item. I'm sure just about everything will have "Warning" on it, which means everyone
will just ignore it and think of anything with that word as mostly benign. Dumbing-down is not the right way to handle safety.
Anyways here's a blank fire diamond template I made, nothing special. I have a better word template for stickers at home but can't access it right
now.
Mailinmypocket - 12-5-2014 at 06:01
I agree that those pictograms are rather clumsy and vague. Instead of fire diamonds using labels with horizontal colored fields is much less of a fuss
from a label printing standpoint than the diamonds, they fit better on labels too if you print on sticky labels
This website allows you to create fire diamonds as a preview for signs which you would order commercially. I find that using this tool and copying and
pasting the previews onto my labels is satisfactory.Pyro - 14-5-2014 at 14:58
I much prefer the old pictograms
I have found a source for these and use them around the lab, they are a lot easier on the eye than the new onesBrain&Force - 14-5-2014 at 18:50
The GHS system an all of the pictogram systems look like something that would be suitable for children's toys (though I do like the orange pictograms,
especially the dead fish and the explosion).
I really like those horizontal labels! One of the ideas that I had was to just print colored numbers corresponding to the colored parts of the fire
diamond.Rogeryermaw - 29-5-2014 at 08:36
just got the new u-line catalog this morning.
they have a full line of customizable d.o.t. diamonds:
