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Safety

General Guidelines

  1. Anyone who is experiencing cold/flu symptoms or came into contact with a person with COVID-19 within the past 5 days must not enter the IMRI facilities. If you are affected by the covid-19 virus, you need to follow the UCI isolation policy available on the UCI EHS website.
  2. All people must wear gloves using the IMRI facilities.
  3. Face coverings are strongly recommended indoors, but not required if you are working alone in labs. In the following situations, face coverings are still required:
  • If you take part in an instrumental operation training
  • If you work with a staff or a co-worker in a small room
  • If you come for a tour
  1. Physical distancing is no longer required in IMRI facilities.
  2. All users must wear long pants and closed-toed shoes while in the lab and appropriate lab coats, gloves, and eye or face protection while working with or near hazardous materials.
  3. Personal safety also needs to be considered when working in the lab alone. A Working Alone Reference Guide is available from EH&S.
  4. Research that generates large volumes of hazardous waste and/or necessarily involves chemical, biological, radiation, or other hazards is prohibited without prior approval from IMRI staff.

IMRI Users SOP

IMRI users must observe the following rules in order to use the IMRI facilities:

  1. Users must follow special safety rules.
  2. Only trained users may use the IMRI facilities.
  3. Users who have symptoms of sickness or were exposed to a person with COVID-19 must not enter the IMRI facilities.
  4. All users must follow the face-covering policy as indicated in general guidelines. Appropriate face coverings may be available to academic users from their PIs, Schools, or EH&S.
  5. Immediately prior to entering the facilities, users must wash their hands with soap for 20 seconds or use hand sanitizer. There are restrooms near each facility. Hand sanitizer stations are also available at each building or IMRI lab entrance. After washing hands, users should not touch the door handles with bare hands (use paper tissues or your arm instead).
  6. Users must wear clean gloves at all times in the facilities. Gloves will be available at each facility entrance. Please put the gloves on immediately after you enter an IMRI facility. Do not use your bare hand to touch anything in the labs! Normal lab gloves cannot be used to handle chemicals. Do not use contaminated gloves to touch door handles, keyboards, and other frequently used areas.
  7. Users must have their cell phones with them at all times. Emergency contacts are posted in each facility near the entrance. Please check and keep a copy of the emergency contacts before using the instruments.
  8. As always, no food or drinks are allowed in the facilities.

IMRI Staff SOP

  1. IMRI’s top priority is your health and safety. Staff should work on campus whenever possible, but there is no pressure to work in any situation in which you feel that your health and safety are at risk.
  2. Staff who have symptoms of sickness or were exposed to a person with COVID-19 should report it and stay at home.
  3. Please follow the face-covering policy stated above. Staff do not need to wear this PPE while alone in their offices.
  4. Staff must frequently wash their hands with soap for 20 seconds and/or use hand sanitizer while at work.
  5. Staff must clean frequently-touched areas from time to time using disinfectant wipes, IPA, ethanol, or bleach solution. Cleaning supplies will be provided by IMRI.
  6. Staff are authorized to enforce the SOP and discipline users who violate the rules. Please remain vigilant and responsive to the changing circumstances.
  7. Please share any concerns and suggestions with Jian-GuoMatt, and/or Xiaoqing.

Penalties for Safety Violations

If a user violates IMRI’s Phase 4 safety SOP for the first time, their IMRI account will be suspended for 1-2 months. Users who violate the SOP for a second time will be suspended for the remainder of the Phase 4 period, and possibly longer.

Safety is the top priority of IMRI facilities. This includes your personal safety and instrument safety.

For personal safety:

Please read the UCI safety-related documents on the EHS website and the safety training-related link.

Please read the radiation safety training document related to the electron microscope, X-ray diffraction systems, and other radiation generation machines.

You must receive safety training before entering the facilities.

For instrument safety:

Please follow the instrument SOP and instructions of IMRI staff.