Good eyes SoTexRattler!!! Good info. If I do decide to levitate my 2000lb hydrogen tank up to my third story.....Oh wait! I only have two stories. Well if I do decide to lev oh never mind. I will just leave it in the back yard.

 

As Billy Mayes would say... "KABOOM Baby!"

 

Color codes vary so much between suppliers that it's impossible to say what's in any of those cylinders.

But I bet you're right that the H2 collected up in the drop ceiling. Somebody turned on the fluorescent lights and lost his or her eyebrows.

 

I am going to go with the blast from below. It is localized and the lift up from the blast pressure caused the ceiling tiles to come loose and when gravity took over they all just fell down. Based also on the fact that there are a lot of undisturbed items on the work benches it was a very small flash and not a lot of force.

 

That is true since some suppliers of H2 cyls are everything from Yellow, Red, black, to silver with red tops.

Currently, from the vendor serving our site, breathing air cyls are yellow, H2's are silver and rust...

You can bet that this Perfesser is having to do a lot of convincing to allow her research to resume.
"Well, we've got that old carport out yonder that you can use to get going again while we clean your mess up and pay for the inevitable lawsuits!"

 

update posted today.

http://www.kmiz.com/news/story.php?id=17520


Posted by Brad Johnson on Fri Jul 9, 2010
Last updated 3 hrs ago



University officials tell ABC 17 News too much hydrogen was allowed into a work area in the lab, something sparked and the gas exploded, leveling the lab. They say it's still unclear what caused the spark, but they've narrowed it down to an electrical switch or other equipment inside the chamber.



University officials say the lab was used to study a special type of bacteria that breaks down toxic metals like uranium. They say researchers were in the process of cleaning out all the oxygen inside the work area when the explosion happened.



Officials tell us they're looking into new ways of conducting this type of research. They say there will be many changes because of this incident.



"We're going in and we're taking a look at some of the details at procedures and training and some of the material we do use and machine we do use and saying what about these could lend it self to error," MU spokesperson Christian Basi tells us.



Some of those changes include diluting the hydrogen they use, turning off gas when experiments aren't being performed, replacing valves that control the gas flow, and extra safety training sessions.



Researchers in professor Judy Wall's lab were the one's doing the experiment at the time the explosion happened. Wall tells us they have already begun making the changes. Workers in the building say they are taking extra precautions because they know the dangers that might come from working in these labs.



"It is just an reiterization that we have to be careful with everything because the chemicals we use can be dangerous, it's just a reminder that we have to be aware of what we're doing," researcher down the hall from where the explosion happened Kelsey Mescher says.



Right now the lab is in the process of being cleaned up and remodeled to be used again. University officials tell us they aren't sure how much it's going to end up costing, but it will be a significant amount. The university says researchers will undergo special training sessions for the new equipment and procedures.

 

?

These are supposed to be educated people, and that's the best sentence he could spew forth? No wonder we have kids coming outta high school that can't read or write. We have teachers coming out of college that can't form coherent sentences!

 

Are there any viable uses for an oxygen and hydrogen mixture?Humm something long and pointy comes to mind.....your tax dollars at work in a SCIENCE LAB!

 

If you noticed, it says MU spokesperson. Its not a teacher. It is a spin doctor who doesn't have a clue what type of research goes on in the labs.
The Prof is sure to have a doctorate in Chemistry and they don't give those out to dummies. Of course, they are teaching Chemistry not English.

 

I dunno... I have met some strange chemists... then again, I got a degree in physics, so my judge of strange may be different.

 

That is an understatement.

 

I'm thinking these folks need to be nominated (and thanked for attempting to remove their gene-pool) for a Darwin Award!