Earl Pearson

pearson@mtsu.edu

Tom Cheatham

CBAS

Discipline specific equipment

DSB Chemistry Labs

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A properly operating fume hood is a piece of discipline specific equipment that is vital to the safety of student in chemistry labs. Last year an inspection of fume hoods for the chemistry laboratories in DSB resulted in locking down most of the hood, since they failed flow volume safety tests. This resulted in most teaching labs having only one fume hood that is operational. Chemistry labs enroll at least 24 students, some enrolling up to 30 students. It is not possible to have all the students in lab use only one hood. Generally in modern buildings, a working fume hood is available for each two to four students in the labs. We propose installing four new fume hoods in the chemistry laboratories on the second floor of Davis Science Building. The cost of purchase and installation of six hoods is $180,000. The labs in DSB service the following courses: CHEM 2031, 2231, 3011, 3021, 3531, 4231, 4331, 4341, 4351, 4361, 6231, 6530 and enrolled a total of 916 students in the 2009-2010 academic year. If the new science building is 5 years off, a total of about 4,600 students will be impacted by this project.