Chemical reaction rocks UVa lab

A University of Virginia research building was evacuated Monday after a cabinet filled with containers of nitric and hydrochloric acid blew open and chemicals flowed out “like lava.”
“I just heard an explosion and ran out,” said Hannah Bindig, a third-year engineering science student who was working inside the third floor Wilsdorf Hall lab at the time. “It sounded like ‘boom!’”

The lab, room 311, is part of UVa’s Center for Electrochemical Science and Engineering and conducts experiments involving corrosion.
Bonnie Bragg, the center’s office manager, said she heard a loud sound — “like a bomb” — and saw that the metal cabinet’s doors had been blown open. Bragg saw a yellowish cloud of smoke and fluids flowing out.
“It started spewing out brown liquid like lava,” she said.
No one was harmed and everyone had been located shortly after the incident occurred at 4 p.m., fire officials said.
While the incident was initially reported as an explosion, the fire department told UVa officials an hour later that it ought to be described as a spill. There were no reports of fire associated with the spill.

Fire investigators discovered that the containers of acid remained intact, indicating that it was not technically an explosion, said Marian Anderfuren, UVa’s director of media relations.
“The containers being intact argues against it being an explosion,” she said. “It is being characterized as a spill, probably with a very loud noise.”
It appears that the chemicals inside the cabinet somehow spilled and “overwhelmed” the cabinet and blew open its doors, Anderfuren said.
Dozens of emergency workers responded to the incident, blocking off McCormick Road for a couple hours and restricting access to Wilsdorf and several adjacent buildings.

Charlottesville Fire Chief Charles Werner said the fire department was investigating. As Werner spoke, firefighters searched the building with litmus paper attached to their gear in an attempt to test the air’s acidity.
“Now we’re just investigating and going through the process of trying to determine what happened,” he said.