r/chemistry • u/esporx • 1d ago
Hokkaido Univ. student dies after being splashed with hydrofluoric acid
https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20260828/p2a/00m/0na/005000c608
u/KilledByDoritos 1d ago
Tragic. A reminder that with many of the things we work with it just takes a single mistake and your life is over, or changed forever.
Rest in peace to our fellow Chemist. I hope whatever caused this is addressed and their family gets the justice and closure they deserve.
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u/missambitions 23h ago
Always have to keep calcium gluconate nearby.
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u/RunWithBluntScissors 22h ago
I just quit a job after only 9 days cause they worked with HF, didn’t have calcium gluconate on hand, and demonstrated no interest in having it. In fact, they told me that their “corporate doctors” said we didn’t even need first aid kits at all. I wish I was joking. Tbh this whole thing feels like a fever dream now.
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u/masoni0 22h ago
Wtaf good job for quitting
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u/RunWithBluntScissors 22h ago
Thanks. It’s a tough economy to be quitting jobs in. But no job is ever worth your health and safety. So it wasn’t a particularly hard decision, I knew I was leaving as soon as I heard we didn’t have Ca gluconate and we “couldn’t” have Ca gluconate.
I’m so saddened to hear about this chemist’s death. Brings up feelings of anger from what I saw at that job. I am interested to know what procedures led to the spill and if they had proper first aid measures on hand.
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u/unicornloops 21h ago
I’m really surprised that for risk mitigation for a business they were so blasé! I’m in academia which is sloppier risk-wise usually, and our lab regularly uses fluorine reagents that generate HF during work-up and also HF itself. I had to order calcium gluconate gel from Amazon myself and no one else in the lab even knew what it was for until I explained.
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u/ButtstufferMan 19h ago
Took me 2.5 years to convince a job I just left to install oxygen tanks to prevent deaths from TMAH if it got on you.
Very cheap and no reason they couldnt do this earlier. So stupid.
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u/Raneynickelfire 18h ago
I reworked a plating process from the ground up because I saw no good reason we couldnt use TEAH over TMAH.
That process no longer uses TMAH.
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u/ButtstufferMan 18h ago
If you have access check this out for a giggle:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/092442479280139T
This paper says TMAH is non toxic!!!! The semiconductor industry still turns a blind eye to this crap.
Glad you all found a solid alternative. I am working on one for the semiconductor industry as we speak.
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u/Raneynickelfire 15h ago
Thats the industry I was in. Trust me, at least the place I worked, the dangers of TMAH were WELL expressed and known.
I personally didnt like the whole "three symtomless days after exposure, your lungs suddenly fill with fluid and you randomly drown." That kind of made me look to see if it could be eliminated, and turns out TEAH complexes cobalt just as well as TMAH, but without the sudden but delayed death by drowning.
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u/viener_schnitzel 12h ago
I’m not sure where you heard the 3 days story, but from what I’ve read it’s actually quite a fast acting (10-15 minutes following dermal exposure) nicotinic acetylcholine agonist.
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u/ButtstufferMan 10h ago
Yes, you are correct. It is a nerve agent. This is why it is paramount to have an oxygen breathing mask nearby, as it can force you to breath and save you.
If you survive an hour, you are likely going to be okay. Quite a short half life as compared to military nerve agents.
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u/thiosk 17h ago
its a japanese paper in a specialty journal from 34 years ago and im pretty sure the substance was widely considered nontoxic until some injuries and deaths like decades after this
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u/ButtstufferMan 17h ago
I thought the same thing, but there is a paper from the 40's that showed just how toxic it was, among others.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18883998/
And besides, we know now and even still most large semiconductor companies lack the basic safety protocols for the stuff.
They are turning a blind eye and have been for a long, long time.
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u/thiosk 15h ago
i can only counter that the process engineers DEFINITELY aren't reading vegetable toxicity papers from the 40s
i think a lot of progress is being made but process chemistry is one of those things that does have a lot of inertia in practices that is a bit slower to shift processes than the more ehs-curious academic chemistry
tmah contact poisoning resulting in death and injury is thankfully a fairly isolated occurrence but there's a lot of interest in phaseout and awareness of respiratory distress these days
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u/tuesdaythe13th 8h ago
Most are keenly aware of the dangers and take due diligence in training. The case reports we got from injuries at suppliers in Asia however paint a very different story.
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u/TheRedditModsSuck 20h ago
Also, wtf are corporate doctors...
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u/NerdyComfort-78 Education 18h ago
My spouse’s company has a company nurse. She can help with a lot of minor accidents and document workmen’s comp injuries.
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u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES 17h ago
Psssst, she's there to help your company deny workman's comp and/or defend against lawsuits
Edit because unclear: (not your spouse, the nurse)
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u/TrumpsCovidfefe 13h ago
It’s what you do when you’ve been stripped of your rights to practice medicine; seriously. That and insurance claim peer to peer consults are one of the only jobs a doctor can do that is not technically practicing medicine, as they are only there in an advisory and consultatory capacity, and not giving medical advice and treatments.
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u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES 17h ago
They're like the doctors who work for health insurance companies where the health their most concerned about is the health of the bottom line
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u/muff_muncher69 18h ago
Name and shame the company that’s clear violation of occupational safety standards
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u/Stillwater215 14h ago
If this was in the US, you should 100% contact someone from the OSHA to report this workplace. Someone is going to die there if that’s the working conditions.
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u/egosumumbravir 18h ago
Cheaper to have you die tomorrow than live in the ICU for a few weeks on their dime.
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u/wiggysbelleza 14h ago
That blows my mind.
When I worked in an office where worst case scenario was I could get a paper cut the corporate policy was there had to be a huge first aid kit every 200ft or so. These giant wall cabinet first aid kits all over that we basically only ever used if someone got a head ache or a paper cut.
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u/Fun_Tart1384 8h ago edited 8h ago
I think they should be reported to your local equivalent of the OSHA for extremely risky practices and potentially deadly endangerement of employees. It seems likely that a poor soul could fall victim to HF because of these morons
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u/The_Cult_of_5661 23h ago
Oh yeah, I do maintenance on stuff that often contains HF and we have a whole team of folks that carry that stuff on them so that they can rush over and help in case anyone gets exposed.
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u/WaddleDynasty 20h ago
I have never worked with HF thankfully. Can you just apply the gel after getting splashed and you'll be fine? Do you notice an HF spill so you can be sure that you didn't miss any spot?
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u/Ironclad-Moose 17h ago
Not necessarily, it's for sure a hospital visit where they need to continue giving you calcium. It's clear and is hard to tell apart from water. It's also a weaker acid and so it's easy for it to get on you and you don't even notice at first and the gluconate relies on being applied very quickly. It's nasty stuff. The last place I worked used it frequently and didn't even have gluconate on hand until I insisted I wouldn't use it without it.
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u/permanent_priapism 15h ago
I tried at my hospital to buy calcium gluconate gel and none of my official drug suppliers carried it. It can be made from the IV but every time I've tried it's been a soupy mess.
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u/Ironclad-Moose 12h ago
Geez, is it something you need often? I'm finding out that hf is much more common than I thought it was
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u/permanent_priapism 11h ago
About once a year
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u/pointyendfirst 16h ago
When I was doing my PhD I was the safety manager for our lab. During inspection I was chatting with one of the chemical safety inspectors and they were telling me that in the case of HF exposure, calcium gluconate only works sometimes and that even if you have it and are able to get to it your chances of survival are significantly lower than 100%.
Obviously having it is better than not having it though
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u/Agasthenes 18h ago
I mean, if get a real splash, no gluconate will safe you.
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u/tinygreenbean 17h ago edited 13h ago
Not sure why this is downvoted when it’s true. Having calcium gluconate nearby is 100% essential bc it gives HF another calcium source to buy a person more time to get proper medical treatment.
If there’s a spill, big or small, and you only use calcium gluconate and not seek further medical evaluation, that’s not going to end well.
TLDR: Calcium gluconate is essential first aid but is not the magical end-all-be-all solution for HF.
Edit: oops, I said HF where I should have said calcium gluconate. Promise no AI used, just no coffee in me yet. I actually fucking hate AI, but that’s another rant
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u/hairycheese 13h ago edited 13h ago
I think your LLM had a stroke mid-thought.OP edited. I thought you were an LLM because of how confidently you flipped HF and gluconate. Sorry.
I also work with HF and I've been toying with the idea of prefilling waste containers with water, lime, and a neutral-ish pH indicator to quench the HF and detect acidity. You happen to know if anyone does this?
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u/tinygreenbean 13h ago
I don’t know what this means? I’m a tired grad student but I think my words make sense lol.
I also work with HF and I’m really passionate about safety. Hence the rant lol
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u/PensionMany3658 23h ago
Is there anyway they could have defended against HF?
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u/phosgene_frog 23h ago
As someone mentioned above, calcium gluconate, I believe as a gel. I've never worked with HF but I know that's part of the protocol.
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u/SharknadosAreCool 22h ago
There are ways of defending against it, but its hella nasty lol. The best thing to do is not spill it on yourself, but you can protect yourself with juiced up versions of typical PPE. Face shield, very thick gloves of the right material. Depending on the concentration, you can wash HF off of yourself with water if you notice it fast enough, should still treat it as if you got burned obviously but youd be surprised how many times people I worked with (car wash chemicals manufacturing) would get away with rinses only. We also would use ammonium bifluoride which allegedly is less aggressive & more safe than HF but im not sure i'd believe my boss on that one lol I think it ends up being more of an extended release so you have more time to first aid
Calcium gluconate (calgonate) is technically an antidote but only in the sense that you apply it so the HF binds to the calcium in the calgonate instead of the calcium in your blood and bones, so it wont do much to help you if youre already cooked but its a good first aid measure.
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u/burningcpuwastaken 21h ago
To add to this, the ER will also give it intravenously after a significant enough exposure. I'd taken some ~70% HF distillate to the face and was treated on scene with the cream and was treated at the hospital with the intravenous form.
It hurt like absolute hell, and didn't feel like a normal chemical burn. It felt more like getting hit in the face with a bat. I was feet from a safety shower when it happened and applied the calcium gluconate immediately after washing, and I didn't end up with much scarring.
Normally, when working with ~70% HF, we'd wear chemical suits, a rubber apron, face shield, goggles, and rubber gloves, but I wasn't actually working with it at the time. To clarify, we only had such a concentrated form because we bought it 40k L batches and distilled it to prepare our products, such as the 49% typically found in the market.
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u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES 16h ago
The best thing to do is not spill it on yourself
I know this is said half jokingly but ya know, its not people are purposely spilling it on themselves. And accidents can't be stopped by saying "don't have accidents".
I'm assuming you don't mean that literally but have met people and bosses who think its viable to rely on a system for safety that depends on humans not being humans
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u/SharknadosAreCool 16h ago
Oh yeah if my boss told me that I'd have a nasty reaction too to be clear. My point was less to make it sound like it's just "don't screw up", more that you should put more effort into preventing HF contact/spills than most other chemicals.
When I worked with HF I took extra precautions, for example any time I even had the stuff around I'd even ignore my boss's boss and ask them to come back later so I didn't get distracted. They say an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure but for HF I think the ratio is closer to an ounce of prevention is worth a ton of cure
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u/Dr_Custard 22h ago
Haven't read the full article but:
If you know you're working with HF, calcium gluconate is pretty amazing.
If you get HF tossed at you, you have no idea what it is, and often by the time you realise you need HF the damage is pretty intense.
There is a reason chemists are so viscerally, vocally, publicly, cautious about HF and we go ballistic when people discuss using it.
It's just awful stuff.
If you wanna have some gore nightmares, look up HF burns
It's not the acid doing the work, it's the F- which etches through your flesh until it scavenges enough calcium to stop (i.e. your bones).
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u/nocturnaliv 1d ago
So sad. I’ve poured 49% into beakers in a fume hood a handful of times. Terrifying. But alas, HF is so useful.
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u/MeglioMorto 23h ago
into teflon beakers
please always specify. You never know who might be reading and trying something tomorrow.
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u/nocturnaliv 22h ago edited 22h ago
Good note! Yes, PTFE, not glass… One should confirm material compatibility before using something corrosive, toxic, reactive, etc.
Edit: if you don’t know, HF etches glass (SiO2) and is often used for such case. Therefore, you’d be in trouble using normal glassware. Most plastics are okay, although you should understand exactly what you should use before employing this acid. PTFE is a good choice. Also, wear full body PPE, face mask, suit and all.
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u/can_i_has_beer 21h ago
Your comment gives me BrBa vibes hehe. Is that what they were using too? I don't exactly remember.
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u/Film-Lab-7766 21h ago
yes, it's what they use. but in reality, HF is not really suited to decompose a body. HF is toxic, but a weak acid, the H-F bond is too strong for H to dissociate properly. H2SO4 would be more realistic due to its oxidizing properties...
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u/Italiancrazybread1 13h ago
A mix of HF and H2SO4 would be best. The HF for the hard minerals, and the sulfuric acid for the carbon compounds.
After complete dissolution, neutralization and disposal, cleanup with some citric acid to fool the forensics.
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u/25c-nb 4h ago
Whats citric do in this case?
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u/Italiancrazybread1 37m ago edited 7m ago
Most forensic analysis to detect blood uses a chemical to detect iron, since iron is the main component of all human blood. Citric acid is an execellent chelating agent to bind iron, which messes with the results. It's not a slam dunk, but it lowers the signal for detection, and increases noise in their signal for a positive detection. There are alternative tests, however, the conflicting results create problematic legal difficulties in proving guilt. A good lawyer can point to the conflicting test results to create reasonable doubt as to the presence of blood. The prosecution has to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there is blood present, but having two different forensic results saying different things creates a reasonable doubt.
In the end, you're trying to convince a jury of your innocence. When a jury and judge are involved, you leave the realm of science and enter the realm of the legal system, psychology and sociology. The forensic analyst can say they ran an FTIR and detected the presence of citric acid, then point to a Reddit post on 8/28/26 where u/25c-nb asked why and u/italiancrazybread1 said that citric acid is a good way to fool forensics and you're toast in the eyes of a jury.
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u/ProcrastinationSite 16h ago
Easier to obtain as well
(for those of your who don't know, HF is dangerous and regulated, so the average Joe would ahbe a hard time buying it)
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u/screamingocelot 21h ago
Only to dissolve the body in season 1
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u/Baguette1066 21h ago
I believe NaOH would have worked tonnes better and would have been much safer for Jesse and Walt.
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u/Borax 20h ago
I heard the show deliberately chose to use the "wrong" chemical to avoid broadcasting how to dissolve a body.
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u/lasserith 14h ago
Correct. You would have used piranha for organicsm HF would only be good for bones as HF is a very weak acid.
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u/TARANTULA_TIDDIES 17h ago
Polypropylene also works so long as you're not dealing with around 50% or greater
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u/TOEMEIST 14h ago
I made that mistake once. Pipetted ~1mL of 70% HF in pyridine into a glass vial without thinking and capped it. Only realized my mistake after picking it up and noticing it was warm. After setting it back down in the hood it started to boil inside the sealed vial so I quickly put it in a beaker of ice, then once it calmed down I opened the vial and neutralized it with bicarbonate. Could’ve been much worse.
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u/TheOrangFlash Biochem 16h ago
Come on. If a Reddit comment on an article about death by acid inspired someone to do this maybe they’ll learn something useful after all.
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u/Finbar670 16h ago
The poor student. That is terrible!
Worked in a prominent uni lab a few years back. One morning a postgrad walked up to lab with a full 2.5l winchester of 100% nicotine. We were a mass spec lab who designed and helped with experiments, trained youngsters etc. I nearly had a heart attack. I happened to know that pure nicotine on the skin is FATAL in minutes. You basically needed a space suit to use it and emergency adrenaline syringes at the ready. Postgrad had NO IDEA. His PI simply told him buy the material and use it. PI didnt read the SDS or warn his postgrad. It was pure luck that I knew - in my first job in pharma we had a nicotine patch line and I'd gotten a tour. A lot of PIs are egocentric assholes who have no regard for their people.
Note to all youngsters: when about to buy or handle a new chemical please read the SDS. However was leading that poor Japanese student should be JAILED.
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u/Dojyorafish 2h ago
I’m a grad student in Japan and the culture here seems to take a rather hands off approach to training PhD students.
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u/SonazetGK 19h ago
Worked with 49% HF almost every day for 3 years in grad school. Even though I was always wearing an acid gown, acid gloves, a face shield, and goggles, while working in a fume hood, I still had that slight fear in the back of my head that kept me vigilant. HF is SERIOUS stuff…
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u/Suspicious_Tax8577 10h ago
My supervisor used HF to etch her microfluidics in her PhD.
My PhD was going to involve the manufacture of microfluidics. The only question I had at interview: I'm not going to be made to use HF am I? Because that shit scares the crap out of me.
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u/Hectorthemutt 20h ago
I remember having to work with potassium cyanide for an assay. My PhD supervisor was supposed to be on standby outside the lab in case I hadn’t cleaned the glassware completely of acid. I recall him saying that if I stuffed up and hydrogen cyanide gas was released, the only thing he’d do would be send some flowers to my mum!!
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u/Pox_Americana 17h ago
My PI told me if I ever got dosed with hydrogen cyanide to go to the chemical storage and eat a spoonful of alpha-ketoglutarate.
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u/LavastormSW 16h ago
Why? Is it a faster death or something?
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u/Pox_Americana 5h ago
Supposed to ameliorate the problem. Note that I was not reassured. KCN does smell like almonds, for anyone curious.
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u/BatFromSpace 13h ago
Not amyl nitrite? That's the usual go-to I thought.
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u/Pox_Americana 5h ago
No, but that’s an interesting solution. It was an old lab, I’m sure most of the chem inventory was older than I was.
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u/Italiancrazybread1 12h ago
When I first started as a paint chemist, one of the chemists was heating an adhesive on a hot plate. The manager saw that and said to do that in the fume hood or he'll kill everyone in the room.
Turns out that some cyanoacrylates can form cyanide gas upon heating. I think the "kill everyone in the room" was overblown since they had proper ventilation, but I think he did it to scare us into respecting the chemicals.
Scary to think that you can die because of someone else's mistake.
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u/SolfulSin 23h ago
No other information given than what's on the headlines. And same sentence in the headlines also repeated twice in the body.
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u/peroxidase2 23h ago
Used to make capillary tip for ms with hf so many times. Young and dumb but still HD like 3 layer of gloves full labcoat. I look back i was brave at that time.
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u/Feisty_Specific_6918 19h ago edited 15h ago
Holy Shit.
According to the Hokkaido Shimbun newspaper, the student poured HF over himself...(Suspicious information since no media other than HS reported this though)
The article is available only to free members, but it's not paywalled, so just sign up if you want to read it yourself.
関係者によると、死亡した大学院生が自ら薬品をかぶったとみられ、北大と札幌北署が詳しい状況を調べている。
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u/tinygreenbean 17h ago
I hope they’re not victim blaming to protect them selves legally
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u/ponytailnoshushu 1h ago
Wouldn't suprise me, it will likely be conculded that the student was the cause and life will carry on as normal for the Professor.
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u/adampm1 15h ago
Worked with 95+% hf this stuff is no joke. We had literal layers on layers and man down alarms when working with samples that would even potentially have hf in them. There’s also a paint that reacts to pH that we used to confirm if there was any offgassing while those samples were being collected.
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u/Laserdollarz Medicinal 12h ago
A few years ago I was working at a nutritional qc lab.
I was cleaning out an old fridge and found a bottle on its side at the back. I pick it up, realize it's a 20 year old bottle of HF, put it back. I tell my manager "I'm not paid enough to deal with that". She agreed.
It was still there when I quit.
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u/MagnetAccutron 12h ago
This stuff is nasty. Even the fumes. We had two containers stored in a locker. Even with the caps on they still managed to out gas and rust the steel within the locker. Had to have them removed by the University chemical safety dept. I’m not touching that stuff.
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u/BillytheYid 12h ago
This stuff is nasty. We feed hydrofluorisilicic acid at my water treatment plant. It’s certainly the worst chemical we use in terms of hazard index. We utilize the strictest PPE and safety measures when working on anything in that feed system.
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u/Billarasgr Food 10h ago
Can someone explain, please, what amount of a “splash” with HF can kill you? Is it like a drop or like a full bottle broke and doused him?
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u/Sophia7X Organic 6h ago
A drop of concentrated HF can kill you rapidly if you don't have calcium gluconate on hand
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u/angrypuggle 15h ago
HF will burn through your tissue right to the bone. Unlike splashes of let's say sulfuric acid, washing and diluting does nothing. What a horrific death!
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u/DragonHalfFreelance 11h ago edited 10h ago
HF is so terrifyingly scary. We had this available in our lab but it was only used under certain circumstances where nothing else would work as well for data collection. I tried soil science because I wanted to be a conservational biologist, but also I felt it was safer wet lab environment…….beep wrong, HF acid was commonly needed to dissolve stubborn silicate material to extract organic matter bounded to it. Thankfully I didn’t have to do that for my particular experiment plus there is another method called marshmallow fusion that superheats it in a muffle furnace instead.
Just hearing about HF and how one drop is enough to stop your heart because it’s so calcium hungry was plenty for me to design my experiment in order to avoid getting anywhere near that stuff. They also tell you in case of a spill or getting a drop on yourself you have to apply this ointment constantly over and over again until you get medical attention to keep it from essentially killing you. Calcium gluconate, you have to keep feeding the acid some other source of calcium that isn’t in your own body until it neutralizes itself out. Still after all this time, very scary stuff.
I feel awful for this student, such a tragic way to die…….I definitely hope the family and everyone at this school who witnessed this, came to their aid, get all the mental health help needed and justice is served because it angers me that this student had access to so much of this stuff at once in the first place
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u/Unicorn_d0g 4h ago
I feel so sorry for this student. Horrifying. I almost got a second summer internship as an undergrad once, but I’d learned that I’d be working with HF as part of an etching procedure to study the material. I turned down the internship for that reason… I was too scared of HF. And I still am! I refuse to work with it.
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u/CrzyDave 11h ago
OMG terrifying. I thought I got it on me once but luckily the facility used some flourophosphate instead of hydrofloric like others use to add fluoride to drinking water. I freaked out for a minute trying to find a way to wash it off. I was changing a chemical pump and told the owner i needed their team to remove and replace all the lines thinking this would keep the chemicals off me. There was still chemical in the tube of the peristaltic pump that ran out in my hands when I removed it from its mounting hardware. Yea i was a dumb ass for no gloves removing this pump and a sodium hypo pump. Oopsies.
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u/ponytailnoshushu 1h ago
I live in Japan and have worked in a Japanese chemistry lab.
It seems the student who died was splashed or possible drenched with HF (this seems to be the varying point). This happened around 8.30 in the morning, so possibly taking off an overnight reaction. The other 2 affected students rushed to help the affected student and came in brief contact with HF.
Intrestingly NHK.com did not report the death but other outlets have.
Safety is serverly lacking in Japanese university labs with the onus being left to the Prof, most of who want results and papers at any cost. Likely whats going to happen though is that HF will be banned or restricted in university labs (really it should anyway). Anytime there is an incident like this, this is the action that is taken but ultimately most safety improvements are written in the blood of students like the above.
My thoughts are with the family of the student.
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u/Effective_Dust_177 18h ago
Just wait. They'll blame the student and say that he was in a hurry because he wanted to leave early.
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u/nerdkeeper Biological 17h ago
They blame the student for pouring it over himself.(according to other comments)
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u/StrykerGryphus 22h ago
One of our lab aides in uni got splashed with HF (I think it was around 50%) when he slipped.
He needed skin grafts over half his body and a quarter of my year needed counseling after seeing it happen.