Clear Roles and Responsibilities

Clear and unambiguous lines of authority and responsibility for ensuring safety are established and maintained at all organizational levels within the Department and its contractors.

Each Division making up the Berkeley Laboratory has clearly defined lines of responsibility down to the working level. Each division designates a research investigator to represent its views and concerns on the Laboratory Safety Review Committee and a full time employee to act as the ES&H Coordinator. This Coordinator acts as the interface between ES&H concerns and compliance in the workplace and the EH&S technical professionals. The organizational information is updated every 60 days and is retained in the Functional/Facility Notebooks as appropriate (see OAP).

Competence Commensurate with Responsibilities

Personnel posses the experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities that are necessary to discharge their responsibilities.

Job assignments, including hires, are reviewed by line management and by the compensation group within Human Resources to ensure that the requirements and responsibilities of a job are matched by the experience, knowledge and skills of individuals selected for assignment. A performance expectation for managers and supervisors in the Division of Environment, Health and Safety is how well the talents, knowledge and skills of staff are matched to work assignments and responsibilities

The Laboratory's training program ensures that each staff member, including participating guests, is adequately trained to do participate safely in Laboratory activities. Staff, with supervisor participation, fill out the Jobs Hazards Questionnaire (JHQ) describing the hazards associated with their job assignment and work area. Evaluation of the responses by the Training Coordinator and the cognizant supervisor determines the training regimen needed to carry out work in a manner that protects the employee, co-workers, the public and the environment.

Balanced Priorities

Resources are effectively allocated to address safety, programmatic, and operational considerations. Protecting the public, the workers, and the environment is a priority whenever activities are planned and performed.

All environment, safety and health activities in the Laboratory are described in technical terms with budgetary information included. Each year this information is updated, reviewed and prioritized on the basis of risk to workers, public, and the environment by a Laboratory wide committee selected to represent programmatic line management and ES & H professionals. This document is utilized by Laboratory Senior Management in strategically planning the immediate focus and long term goals of the environment, safety and health program at the Laboratory.

Hazard Controls Tailored to Work Being Performed

Administrative and engineering controls to prevent and mitigate hazards are tailored to the work and associated hazards being performed.

Chapter 6 of the Environment, Health and Safety Manual clearly defines the steps for each line manager to develop the appropriate engineering and administrative controls to mitigate hazards in the workplace. The Laboratory's Self Assessment Program, including Functional Appraisals by ES & H professionals, and the UC/DOE Contract 98 Performance Measures provide assurance that implementation of hazards control is adequate to protection the worker, the public and the environment.

Identification of Safety Standards and Requirements

Before work is performed, the associated hazards are evaluated and an agreed-upon set of safety standards and requirements are established which, if properly implemented, provide adequate assurance that the public, the workers, and the environment are protected from adverse consequences.

The Laboratory is dedicated to following the Necessary and Sufficient Closure Process (DOE 450.3) on an iterative basis at all levels of activities in the Laboratory to ensure the Safety Standards are adequate to provide protection to workers, the public and the environment. This process is completed by to commencement of work in those situations where current work is significantly modified, new work is proposed or substantial facility modifications are being made (Chapter 6, Environment Health and Safety Manual).

Operations Authorization

The conditions and requirements to be satisfied for operations to be initiated and conducted are clearly established and agreed-upon.

Conditions and requirements for facilities determined to be of higher risk based on the Preliminary Hazards Analysis are contained in a Safety Analysis Document. Activity Hazard Documents are the basis for meeting this requirement for specific operations and activities falling into the higher risk category at the Berkeley Laboratory. Internal Agreements describing the performance expectations by each party are used for operations between two functional areas where the quality of performance might adversely impact the Laboratory's ability to meet its responsibility to protect workers, the public and the environment.

ACTIONS TO BE PERFORMED

The Chemical Sciences Division conducts basic research in chemical physics and the dynamics of chemical reactions, catalysis, electron spectroscopy, photochemistry, atomic photochemistry, theoretical chemistry, atomic physics, and the chemistry of actinide elements. Its mission is several fold: to continue excellence in research ensured by rigorous peer reviews and the highest caliber scientific staff, to conduct and pursue research which is consistent with the National Energy Strategy, and to engage and instruct the next generation of scientists as a part of the Division's research mission.

1. Actinide Chemistry: Development of new technologies for the use, safe handling, storage, and disposal of actinide materials relies on further understanding of basic actinide chemistry and the availability of trained personnel. This research program is a comprehensive, multifaceted approach to actinide chemistry and to the training of students to address issues in the future. Research efforts include synthetic chemistry to develop new chemical reagents and actinide materials, their chemical and physical elucidation through characterization techniques, and thermodynamic/kinetic studies for evaluation of complex formation. One aspect is the development of complexing agents that specifically sequester actinide ions for the decorporation of actinides in humans and for the separation of actinides in the environment. Extensive studies are underway to prepare organometallic and coordination compounds of the f-block elements showing the differences and similarities among the f-elements and between the f- and d-transition series elements. Optical and magnetic studies on actinides as isolated ions in ionic solids, and in molecules, give information about electronic properties as a function of atomic number. Synchrotron radiation investigations at the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and at the Advanced Light Source provide oxidation state and structural information on actinide material systems of environmental interest.

2. Evaluation of chelating ligands for removing uranium/plutonium deposited in bone and kidneys. Research includes the study of the potency of new chelating agents for promoting excretion of internal deposited actinides and related heavy metals.

3. High Energy Atomic Physics: The goals of this program are (1) to achieve an understanding of the physics of electron-positron pair production and heavy particle capture from pair production using theory and experiment and (2) to search for a charge-parity violating permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron as small as 10-30 e-cm (thousands of times smaller than the present limit). Recent results include the discovery of a new atomic collision process, electron capture from pair production. In this process, an electron-positron pair is produced by the transient electromagnetic field of a relativistic ion-atom collision, and the electron from the pair emerges from the collision bound to the projectile ion. Capture from pair production is predicted to be an important beam loss mechanism at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider. Present activities include (1) extending the measurement of electron capture from pair production to 10 GeV/nucleon collision energies and the capture of particles heavier than electrons, (2) performing calculations of capture from pair production using parallel computing, and (3) constructing a new experiment to search for an electron EDM using laser trapping and cooling.

4. Atomic Physics: Studies of the structure and interactions of atomic systems are conducted to provide the most detailed description of their behavior and to stimulate theoretical understanding of the observed phenomena. The approach to this work emphasizes research topics that are best addressed with unique tools and expertise available at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory (LBNL). Currently the program exploits the ability of two state-of-the-art, electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) ion sources at LBNL to produce intense, highly charged beams for the conduct of low-energy (v < 1.0 au) ion-atom collision studies. Current emphasis is on multiple electron transfer to bare, one, and two electron ions. This includes measurement of magnetic substrates populated in double electron capture, and the production of low-energy (<20 eV) continuum electrons accompanied by transfer to bound projectile states in collisions with He and more complex targets. Auger electron spectra, and photon spectra from multiply charged ion-atom collisions are used to gain insight into population mechanisms and the structure of highly excited states. The program benefits substantially from collaborative efforts with colleagues from outside LBNL.

5. Characterization of the Li-Electyrolyte Interface: A detailed understanding of the reactions that occur between metallic Li and the individual molecular constituents of electrolytes used in Li batteries will be developed. Ultrahigh vacuum (UHV) deposition methods are used to prepare ultraclean Li surfaces of preferred orientation. Molecular films of solvent and/or solute molecules are deposited onto the clean surfaces in UHV at a very low temperature. The reaction between Li and the molecular films is followed using a combination of UHV surface analytical techniques, including Auger electron spectroscopy (AES), secondary ionization mass spectroscopy (SIMS), vacuum UV and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (UPES and XPS), and the recently developed variant of XPS termed photoelectron diffraction. The connection between films formed on Li in UHV and films formed at ambient temperature and pressure on Li in liquid electrolyte is made by the use of a common spectroscopy, ellipsometry. Using the fingerprint method, the ellipsometric signatures obtained in UHV for different surface layers having various known structures and compositions are used to identify the structure and composition of the film formed on the Li electrode in liquid electrolyte.

6. Superconducting Properties of High Temperature Oxides: Theoretical studies: correlation between structure and properties, electromagnetic and transport properties, doping and non-adiabaticity, vortex structure. Applications are: transmission lines, microwave losses, interface phenomena, and proximity effect.

7. Chemical Dynamics: The objectives of this program are to develop the basic knowledge and understanding of the mechanisms and dynamics of elementary chemical reactions that have a major impact on combustion and advanced energy production technologies. Recent emphasis has been to determine the structure and chemical behavior of free radicals, unusual transient species, clusters, and highly-excited polyatomic molecules, and to provide microscopic details of primary dissociation and bimolecular processes. These objectives are achieved with a strongly coupled experimental and theoretical-computational approach, using emerging technologies. Dynamical studies use advanced molecular beam and laser techniques, photofragmentation translational spectroscopy, and ion imaging. Kinetics studies employ IR laser flash kinetic spectroscopy and high-resolution UV-VUV laser spectroscopy. New theoretical methods and models are developed both to provide insight into chemical reactivity and the dynamics of reactive processes and also to allow one to carry out forefront calculations to guide and model several of these experimental studies. There are several significant recent advances: lifetime measurements of high-n Rydberg states of NO and Xe reveal the dependence of these lifetimes on collisions and weak electric fields that mix some high-l character with the prepared state. These studies for the first time place the widely used Zero-Electron Kinetic Energy (ZEKE) photoelectron spectroscopy technique on a firm ground. The photodissociation of ozone at 193 nm revealed a range of excited products, and a substantial yield of highly excited ground electronic state O2 was observed, recently suggested to play an important role in the stratospheric ozone budget. Photochemistry of numerous radical systems have been studied using flash pyrolysis and fast beam techniques; these include methoxy, methyl, acetyl, and allyl radicals; the results yield new information on thermochemistry and dissociation dynamics for these important combustion intermediates. Combined theoretical and experimental studies have been used to probe the properties of the transition state in ketene dissociation, providing a strong test of the basic tenets of unimolecular reaction theories. Theoretical methods continue to be advanced, allowing efficient calculation of the rate of a chemical reaction directly and without approximation. Theoretical and experimental approaches have been combined in an investigation of energy transfer processes in collisions of electronically excited hydrogen molecules. New studies in the coming years will take advantage of the Chemical Dynamics Beamline soon to be commissioned at the Advanced Light Source. This beamline will be a national User Facility promising a new era in the study of primary photochemistry, spectroscopy, and reaction dynamics, making use of the intense ultraviolet light provided by the ALS. The Chemical Dynamics Beamline comprises several dedicated molecular beam machines, a specially developed high-intensity laser.

8. Catalytic Conversion of C1 Compounds: The purpose of this program is to develop an understanding of the fundamental processes involved in the catalytic conversion of C1 compounds such as CO, CO2, and CH4 to fuels and chemicals. The effects of metal oxides on the Fischer-Tropsch activity of metals such as Ru and Rh have been investigated. Electron microscopy together with 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) reveal that metal oxide promoters decorate the surface of the metal. Cationic vacancies at the perimeter of the oxide islands interact with oxygen atoms in either CO or HXCO facilitating their further reaction to products. Promoter effectiveness correlates with the Lewis acidity of the cations in the metal oxide. In situ IR studies show that the hydrogenation of CO2 to methane proceeds via the dissociation of CO2 to produce CO. The higher rate of methane formation from CO2 than CO under identical partial pressures of H2 and COX is attributable to the lower coverage of the catalyst surface by adsorbed CO in the former case. Methane is activated on Ru at low temperatures (623 K) to produce CHX and C2HX species. These species can be polymerized to produce higher molecular weight hydrocarbons or used to alkylate other organic compounds.

PHYSICAL CONDITIONS

WITHIN WHICH THE WORK WILL BE PERFORMED

Building 2: One laboratory on the 1st Floor contains experiments supported by the Characterization of the Li-Electrolyte Interface program of CSD. Safety of the laboratory is managed by the Materials Sciences Division and was included in the IHA evaluation of that division. Also, the Chemical Dynamics program occupies space on 3rd Floor. Research activities in the area have stopped and the equipment is being moved to Building 6.

Building 6: The Chemical Dynamics program has research activities on one of the beamlines in the ALS. Safety of the activities is managed by the ALS staff and was included in the IHA evaluation of the ALS.

Building 62: The Superconducting Properties of High Temperature Oxides program occupies office space on the 3rd Floor. All of the research activities are computer analysis and there are no ES&H issues except ergonomics. Also, The Catalytic Conversion of C1 Compounds program occupies space on the 3rd Floor. The program is moving to Tam Hall on the UCB campus. Safety of the program was reviewed in the Material Sciences Division IHA.

Building 70A: The Actinide Chemistry program occupies space on the 1st and 2nd Floors. Also, the Evaluation of Chelating Ligands for Removing Uranium/Plutonium Deposited in Bone and Kidney occupies space on the 2nd Floor.

Building 71: The High Energy Atomic Physics program occupies space in Building 71.

Building 74: The Evaluation of Chelating Ligands for Removing Uranium/Plutonium Deposited in Bone and Kidney program jointly uses one lab on the 3rd floor with the Life Science Division.

Building 88: The Atomic Physics group conducts experiments in Building 88. A Memorandum of Understanding is in place between the Nuclear Science Division and the Chemical Science Division which establishes safety responsibility for research activities with NSD.

UCB Campus activities are located in the following buildings: Hildebrand, Lewis, Latimer, Gilman, Giauque and Birge. Future activities will also be included in Tam Hall. Research activities and hazards in UCB facilities are similar to hazards on the LBNL site. Research activities are also conducted at other locations such as Brookhaven and Stanford. The safety of activities at Brookhaven and Stanford are covered by ES&H requirements of those institutions

MATERIALS AND CONDITIONS

THAT COULD CAUSE ADVERSE CONSEQUENCES

General: Most of the laboratories use potentially hazardous chemicals and radionuclides. Several of the laboratories make use of non-ionizing radiation sources, cryogens, lasers and magnetic fields. Biohazardous materials are not used. Small vacuum systems and compressed gasses (including toxic gases) are used in several laboratories.

Electrical and Mechanical Hazards: A limited array of electrical and mechanical hazards are present in the CSD. These include high voltage electrical systems, high current electrical systems, repetitive trauma associated with office work, a few small vacuum systems, some pressurized gas systems, belt driven equipment and ovens.

Electrical Hazards

Pressure and Vacuum Hazards

Ovens

Repetitive Mechanical Trauma

Chemical Hazards: A variety of toxic, flammable, corrosive, reactive or otherwise dangerous chemicals are used in the CSD. In almost all cases, the quantities used at any time are quite small, consistent with typical laboratory operations. Examples of hazardous chemicals in use in CSD are provided below.

Flammable Gases:

Flammable Liquids:

Inert Cryogens:

Corrosives:

Reactives:

Reproductive Toxins:

Carcinogens:

Pyrophorics:

Toxic Materials:

Health Hazard Gases:

Oxidizers:

Physical Agents: Physical agents present in CSD include ultraviolet radiation, lasers, magnetic fields and microwave radiation. Each of these is discussed below.

Ultraviolet Radiation

Radiofrequency/Microwave Radiation

Lasers

Magnetic Fields

Infectious/Biohazardous Agents: The CSD does not use biohazardous agents.

Accelerators and Radiation: Accelerator activities are conducted offsite at Stanford or Brookhaven except for the Atomic Physics activities at Building 88. Hazard and safety information for Building 88 is covered in the Nuclear Science Division report. Below is a description of activities on the LBNL site with respect to radionuclides.

Actinide Chemistry: Experimental activities with radionuclides include: Stabilization of Radioactive Waste; Magnetic Measurements on Uranium Compounds; Actinide Spectroscopy: Measurement of fluorescence or absorption spectra of various actinides; Preparation of Plutonium, Thorium, Neptunium and Curium for various experiments; Synthesis and characterization of inorganic and organometalic compounds containing uranium, thorium and group IVA transition metals; Electron Spectroscopy of Actinides (Synchrotron radiation investigation of oxidation state and structural information on actinide material systems of environmental interest).

Evaluation of Chelating Ligands for Removing Uranium/Plutonium deposited in Bone and Kidneys. Experimental activities with radionuclides include studies of the potency of new chelating agents for promoting excretion of internally deposited actinides and related heavy metals through injection of mice with actinides.

High Energy Atomic Physics: Experimental activities with radionuclides include: Laser trapping and cooling of Francium and Cesium and relativistic atom collisions.

UNCERTAINTIES ABOUT THE WORK

There are no unique uncertainties which will impact hazard identification and selection of applicable and appropriate standards and requirements.

RESOURCE AVAILABILITY AND CONSTRAINTS

No significant changes in CSD resources dedicated to ES&H activities are planned.

Representatives of the CSD offered the following evaluation of the EH&S Division past and future resources and support:

The following concerns were raised by CSD:

Suggestions for improvements:

STAKEHOLDER CONCERNS

There are no stakeholder concerns unique to CSD. CSD has managed, controlled, and permitted (as required) air, water, hazardous, and solid waste streams.