Abstract
A case study to analyze the behavior of an experimenter and the treatment of chemical substances within a laboratory was carried out in an actual academic chemical laboratory using fixed-point observation via web cameras. The behavior of an experimenter, an undergraduate student in a polymer chemistry research group, was monitored by ten web cameras. The experimenter's behavior in the laboratory was classified into three groups: operations in the protocol, complementary operations not explicitly in the protocol, and movements around the laboratory. The total time spent on these complementary operations was found to equal or exceed that spent on the work actually operations in the protocol, suggesting that risk assessments of laboratory experiments need to account for complementary procedures beyond those operations in the protocol. The findings also suggest that changes and adjustments to the experimental scenario must be taken into account in risk assessment. An analysis of the time distribution of the experimenter's work showed that, though he used many places in the laboratory in line with his experimental protocol, the laboratory bench acted as the hub of his experimental activity. In contrast, chemicals were used in very few locations within the laboratory, and relatively little time was spent using chemicals at the laboratory bench. Results suggested that glassware cleaning is the work that gives rise to by far the most risk of chemical exposure compared to other experimental operations. These findings are expected to contribute to a more informed discussion of risk assessment with regard to laboratory experiments.
