Chemical SOP Templates and Guidelines - University of Houston
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Chemical SOP Templates and Guidelines

It is a good practice to develop and implement Chemical Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to ensure that all laboratory personnel are adequately trained and familiar with the chemical properties, health/physical hazard information, toxicity data and control/mitigation methods of the chemicals before their use.   

Procedures for the establishment of a designated area; use of containment devices such as fume hoods or glove boxes; procedures for safe removal of contaminated waste; and decontamination procedures are especially important for Particularly Hazardous Substances (PHS) and should be described in detail in their lab-specific Chemical SOP.   

Principle Investigator (PI) should identify chemical hazards within the laboratory, develop, review, and approve lab-specific SOP for Particularly Hazardous Substances, and ensure that lab personnel are trained, understand, and implement the procedures as directed in the lab-specific SOP. PI should properly maintain the Training Documentation Page, which can be found below and also on each Chemical SOP template and Guideline.

Any laboratory personnel shall not use the chemicals addressed in the lab-specific Chemical SOPs until the SOPs are reviewed and approved by the PIs, and the laboratory personnel are properly trained according to the SOPs. 

EHS assists laboratories by creating SOP templates and guidelines for certain commonly used hazardous chemicals on UH campus and is available for review on SOPs developed by the labs. Please note that EHS review supplements, but does not replace, PI review and approval. EHS will also document SOPs submitted by PIs on a secure website. 

To assist you in writing lab-specific SOPs:

  • Example Chemical SOP templates for specific chemicals are provided for you to use or to modify to your specific location and procedures and use.  
  • Chemical Guidelines serve as class chemical SOP templates, which can be used to address a group of chemicals in the same hazard class.
  • A blank SOP template (hosted on UH Sharepoint) can also be used with the minimum safety elements which are outlined in the SOP Creation Guideline (hosted on UH Sharepoint).
  • Any format of SOP is acceptable provided the minimum safety elements are addressed.  Ensure Training Documentation Page (hosted on UH Sharepoint)is incorporated into your SOP. 

Below are links to example Chemical SOP Templates and Guidelines. 

Chemical SOP Templates (alphabetical order)

These templates are hosted on UH Sharepoint, if you are asked to log in please use your cougarnet credentials.

Chemical Guidelines (alphabetical order)

These templates are hosted on UH Sharepoint, if you are asked to log in please use your cougarnet credentials.