Hazardous Materials Lab

The galaxy offers many materials that are harmful to living beings, their environment, and the ships and stations they serve aboard---both known and unknown. To understand and evaluate these materials, they have to be studied from time to time. Hazardous Material Labs (HazMat labs) are protected areas aboard that allow scientists and engineers the opportunity to study such deadly and volatile substances. These materials may be solids, liquids, or gases that have been deemed the following: explosive, corrosive, flammable, toxic, radioactive, oxidizing, biohazardous, asphyxiating, pathogenic, cryogenic, or time-altering. Various forms of plasma and other fluid energies are normally examined in HazMat labs geared for engineers.

These specialized labs are sealed both mechanically and with containment fields to shield it away from the rest of a ship/station. The decks, bulkheads, and ceilings are reinforced with a polymercerium and tritanium "honeycomb" that is able to withstand pressures three times greater than that encountered by a ship's spaceframe. Inside the spaces of this structure is a piping network designed to pump in a variety of neutrelizing chemicals and/or gases. The interior of these labs are coating with a special treatment that greatly reduces the creation of sparks and reactions with other elements. They are also equipped with additional Fire Suppression Systems, including projectable containment fields and a nozzle-injection system (filled with either nitrillmane halofoam or fluoramane gas). Diemathyl gel extinguishers are also on-hand to deal with EM discharges. HazMat labs are rated to handle up to Level 5 Hazardous Threats.

HazMat labs have their own dedicated ventilation system, designed to send harmful gases and particles into space. Likewise, liquids and solids can also be beamed into space via a dedicated low-resolution micro-transporter or dropped into a hazardous material recycling replicator. Some ships and stations also have the ability to inject these unwanted materials directly into the Fusion Reactor of their Impulse engines for disposal.

Entrance and exit from a HazMat lab is through an attached airlock-decontamination suite. Those working inside are required to wear certain personal protection equipment, from simple gloves to a full emergency pressure garment (EPG), depending on the material(s) in question. These suits may be self-contained with backpack-mounted breathing apparatus or attached to the lab's central environmental system through flexible hoses.

As part of their basic training in Starfleet, every member of a crew posseses basic knowledge on how to deal with a hazardous material event. It is standard command procedure to see that at least 25% of a ship/station's crew have advanced training as well.

See also Isolation Lab