Chinese universities have been urged to improve the control and management of hazardous chemicals in their labarotories to prevent safety risks and cases of misuse.
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The Ministry of Education on Thursday posted a circular on its website, requiring universities and colleges to improve their regulation of the storing, use and disposal of hazardous chemicals they keep for experiments.
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The entire process regarding chemicals should be put under control, and all areas, including purchasing, obtaining, use, returning and disposal, should be properly recorded, the circular said.
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Colleges should make sure that registrations of consumption and inventory of chemicals are accurate and tally with each other, the document said.
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Toxic chemicals should be double-locked and major processes, such as storing, obtaining and using must be conducted by at least two people, it said.
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Moreover, different hazardous materials must be kept separately, and inflammable and explosive materials in laboratories, including labs that are not in use, should be properly handled, the circular said.
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The document also urged local governments and authorities to make sure regulations are properly carried out.
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The circular was issued after a campus poisoning case last month, where a postgraduate student in Shanghai was poisoned to death.
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The suspect, a medical student from China's renowned Fudan University, allegedly took some N-Nitrosodimethylamine, a highly toxic chemical compound, from the university laboratory and put it into the drinking water machine in the dormitory, leading to the poisoning of his roommate.
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Also in April, an explosion at a university in Nanjing, apital of east China's Jiangsu Province, killed one person and injured three others.
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The blast in a disused laboratory at the university was allegedly caused by some workers attempting to steal lab materials.Â