Two songs from Angel
Clare, Art Garfunkel’s first solo album, that came out in1973. Along with
Jimmy Webb’s Land’s End (see#41-“Walk Your Feet in the Sunshine”), it was the most played cassette during
my prototype plating days at Accutronics (Accu). “All I Know” is the best
version of the Jimmy Webb-penned tune and “Traveling Boy” is the first song on
the album. (And the album came with a 24x36 ultra grainy, black and white poster
of Artie and producer Roy Halee standing in the church where the album was
recorded. You just don’t get stuff like that in CD jewel cases or anything at
all if you download)
Hearing these songs remind me of three more “Fun with
Chemistry” moments at Accu.
1. In the late 1970s, Accu switched their copper etchant from
ferric chloride, to cupric chloride, which could be regenerated. Cupric used
Sodium Chlorate and Hydrochloric Acid to regenerate (actually it creates new
cupric, you need to keep bleeding off etchant as you regenerate) the acid so
that the etch rate stayed constant (with Ferric Chloride, as the day went on,
you had to slow the machine conveyor to compensate for the acid getting full of
copper and reducing the etch rate).
Accu had a 100 gallon tank near the etcher that fed the device
that regenerated the cupric. It was the first time we had used hydrochloric
acid (HCl) in such volume and we had purchased a gas mask in case of spillage,
since HCl gas is very corrosive to the lungs.
My boss, Mr. Mortimer, handed me a mask. I put it on, opened
the lid to the tank, stuck my head in and took a breath….
Gaaaakkkk!!!!
I brought my head out and exhaled through the mask, HCl gas
exiting the valve of it. I coughed and gagged ‘til I thought I would see chunks
of lung on the floor. Mort doesn’t recall this, but I seem to recall him
giggling a little as I retched. Turns out the filter on the mask was a dust and
mist filter, not the HCl gas filter we needed. (Again, remember I was not a
chemist and did not know from HCl gas, knowing only that it was corrosive to
some metals).
Which leads to story #2, related to #1 in that it also had to
do with the HCl used in regenerating the cupric chloride. As I wrote earlier,
we had a 100 gal tank of HCl near the etcher that was fed from a pump in an
underground pit which housed a 2500 gallon tank of HCl. We had the HCl brought in by tank truck.
Several days after we began running the system, one of the
operators came to me and said the pump (from underground to the 100 gallon
tank) was not working. I pressed the
button on the wall near the 100 gallon tank, making sure the valves were open,
etc. and verified that it was not working.
To access the underground tank you lifted a heavy metal trap
door and climbed down an 8 foot aluminum ladder to get to the bottom of the
pit. I shined a flashlight down into the pit and saw a 3 ft ladder leaned
against the wall, about 5 feet from where it would be of any use in climbing
down.
“Where’s the 8 ft ladder?” I asked.
Then it hit me (as most things did, rather slowly), the 3 ft
ladder had been the 8 ft ladder, but
a leak of HCl had covered the floor and the acid had eaten the other 5 feet as the
ladder sank into it.
Turns out our crack plumbing contractor had used a pump with
workings not resistant to acid, which had been eaten away, allowing several
hundred gallons to leak out into the pit to the depth of 3-4 inches.
Mr. Mortimer, ever the comedian, said I could go down and
spread some Sodium Hydroxide and water to dilute and neutralize the HCl acid so
that the pit could then be safely pumped out and the tank re-plumbed. Luckily
they had a HazMat (Hazardous Materials to you neophytes out there) head-to-toe suit
in my size (6’5”, 215 lbs at that time) and I put it on (with the correct gas
mask this time), climbed down into the pit on a wooden ladder, and in a haze of
HCl gas, spread Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) and ran a hose until a pH probe
indicated we had neutralized the acid and could pump it out.
All this fun at $4.00/hr.
The third story in my “Fun with Chemistry” trilogy happened
when I was running my prototype plating line, a couple years later. In one of
the baths, a Peroxide-Sulfuric micro etch, we used 96% pure Sulfuric Acid
(H2SO4), a viscous, highly corrosive (to skin especially) liquid.
I bought it in 5 gallon jugs that I would install a bung valve
in, and then lay it on its side when I needed to get some out for use in the
plating line. This day I had it on a shelf about 5 feet off the floor and as I
opened the plastic valve, it broke off in my hand and H2SO4 began to chug out
onto the floor at my feet.
I grabbed the handle and pulled it from the shelf and put it
on the floor. As it hit the floor, the liquid inside sloshed around and up
through the hole where the valve had been, splashing my face and neck as I
looked down at it.
I was wearing safety glasses so the acid was not in my eyes
and there was a large, clear water rinse bath close by and I dunked my whole
face into the cooling water. I then went to a mirror to see my face covered
with red circles, where drops of acid had burned my skin. It had also melted
huge holes through the cuffs of my 100% polyester pants, but had not reached my
socks. I rinsed the pant cuffs as well.
At that time I was still the Process Engineer/Quality Manager
and as such, still wore a shirt and tie as I plated, dealt with customers, and
with internal quality issues. However, one drop of H2SO4 had struck my shirt
collar and it took several minutes to soak through to my neck. By then I was being
driven to Good Shepherd Hospital by my friend, Jerry B., and I had no way to
counteract the acid as it burned my neck. When I got to the hospital they put
burn cream on all the spots and I returned to work looking like a clown who had
the tremors and had tried to apply his own white face makeup.
None of the burns, save the one on my neck, resulted in any
scarring, so I got that goin’ for me.
