All,

For those working with synthetic chemists in research and in process/scale-up, an article out today in ASAP Alerts for Organic Process Research and Development (an ACS journal) should be of critical interest to them, regardless of their sense of glory or career situation. I've copied the reference and abstract below. The subject is explosion potential of sodium hydride use in polar parotid solvents (i..e. DMSO, DMF and DMA).

This, by the way, is a journal that has safety quite frequently as a topic.

Best,

Lee

Explosion Hazards of Sodium Hydride in Dimethyl Sulfoxide, N,N-Dimethylformamide, and N,N-Dimethylacetamide

Qiang Yang, David E. Ejeh, et al.

DOI:10.1021/acs.oprd.9b00276 Abstract The hazards associated with the thermal decomposition of chemically incompatible sodium hydride solvent matrices are known, with reports from the 1960s detailing the inherent instability of NaH/dimethyl sulfoxide, NaH/N,N-dimethylformamide, and NaH/N,N-dimethylacetamide mixtures. However, these hazards remain underappreciated and undercommunicated, likely as a consequence of the widespread use of these NaH/solvent matrices in synthetic chemistry. We report herein detailed investigations into the thermal stability of these mixtures and studies of the formation of gaseous products from their thermal decomposition. We expect this contribution to promote awareness of these hazards within the wider scientific community, encourage scientists to identify and pursue safer alternatives, and most importantly, help to prevent incidents associated with these reactive mixtures.

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