Dear all, The recent fire we had in a poorly organized and overstuffed solvent hood that started from an inappropriate hotplate (please see BNC e-news 3/13/17) serves as a strong reminder to all of us that a safe environment is critical and should not be taken for granted. It was only due to the composed and rapid actions by the researchers around the hood and Stephen Jurss who responded immediately and very effectively that we did not suffer injuries or severe equipment damage. We would like to invite everyone to view this as an important opportunity to improve safety at Birck. It is also a good warning that becoming complacent about safety is never a good idea. As a first step, we have completed a review of the hoods in the labs and have identified several cases where immediate action is required. Please see the attached file for details. Despite several warnings in our all-user meetings, we have not seen the need improvement yet. We request that you please clean up the mentioned hoods asap before April 12. While hoods can be used to temporarily store small amounts of chemicals, these need to be properly labeled and placed in appropriate bottles. Please check with Stephen Jurss for any questions on this. If no action is taken, the hoods will be closed and all work around them will be stopped. Additional reviews will be conducted and more steps will be taken in the next few weeks. We recommend that you make every effort to maintain a safe and clean environment so no further actions become necessary. Thank you very much for paying attention to this important matter. Please feel free to direct any questions to Stephen Jurss or me. Dimitri ________________________________________________________________________________ Dimitrios Peroulis Professor, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Deputy Director, Birck Nanotechnology Center Purdue University 1205 West State Street West Lafayette, IN 47907-2057 tel: (765) 494-3491 email: dperouli@purdue.edu http://sites.google.com/site/peroulisteam/ ________________________________________________________________________________