Exploding Bottle of Acetone / CO2
The incident
A bottle of acetone, used for cold baths, spontaneously exploded, showering all the laboratory with glass
The Investigation
The lab had used acetone to make a dry ice bath, after they were finished with it, they would let it warm up over night, the acetone was then poured into a safecote bottle for reuse. Some two weeks passed after the last use until the bottle exploded.
There are two theories why this happened.
- Some CO2 remained in solution and later caused the bottle to burst
- As the acetone was reused over and over again, it may have been contaminated by some material, which later catalysed the decomposition
Lessons
It is not wise to keep reusing solvents over an over again, where solvents have been cooled with dry ice, there is always a danger due to later degassing (acetone dissolves rather a lot of CO2 when cold). For such solvents storage in less rigid containers would be better.