Development of Safety Protocol, Features, and Fail-Safes for a Laboratory-Scale Manufacturing Process

The manufacturing of composite materials has many associated hazards – health, physical, fire/explosive, and environmental hazards, to name a few. With general laboratory safety training and common sense, some hazards are readily apparent and easily detected by the students working on a project. However, many of the dangers associated with volatile or toxic chemicals cannot be seen and consequently go unnoticed until an incident occurs. This document details the work done by undergraduate students, faculty and staff at Western Washington University to develop appropriate safety features for a laboratory scale solventbased prepreg manufacturing machine. This manufacturing process has a variety of associated hazards including physical hazards (moving parts on the machine), health hazards (use of toxic/sensitizing chemicals), fire/explosive hazards (volatilization of organic solvents during manufacturing process), and environmental hazards (use of ecologically harmful materials), making it an excellent case study for the development of safety protocol by an academic institution. To date there has not been any documentation centered around the challenges associated with creating a solvent-based prepreg treater system. The safety feature and protocol development process is explained in detail and may serve useful for other institutions undertaking similar projects.