Beryllium10: A free and simple tool for creating and managing group safety data sheets

Abstract

Background: Countless chemicals and mixtures are used in laboratories today, which all possess their own properties and dangers. Therefore, it is important to brief oneself about possible risks and hazards before doing any experiments. However, this task is laborious and time consuming. Summary. Beryllium10 is a program, which supports users by carrying out a large part of the work such as collecting/importing data sets from different providers and compiling most of the information into a single group safety data sheet, which is suitable for having all necessary information at hand while an experiment is in progress. We present here the features of Beryllium 10, their implementation, and their design and development criteria and ideas. Conclusion: A program for creating and managing of group safety data sheets was developed and released as open source under GPL. The program provides a fast and clear user-interface, and well-conceived design for collecting and managing safety data. It is available for download from the web page. © 2014 Kochmann; licensee Chemistry Central Ltd.