Keep flammable materials away from electrical equipment. The equipment may serve as a source of ignition for flammable or explosive vapors.
Receptacles providing power for equipment used inside a fume hood should be located outside the hood.
Make sure that equipment used where flammable vapors may be present is specially rated to not produce sparks. Many household appliances such as hot plates, vacuum cleaners, and drills don’t meet this requirement so they should be used only under very controlled conditions.
If refrigeration or freezing is needed, flammable materials should only be stored in explosion safe or explosion proof equipment. These do not contain any spark sources such as lights and switches.
Do not plug heating mantles directly into a 110-volt outlet as they can overheat, leading to fire hazard. They need a variable auto-transformer to control the input voltage.
Be aware that if drying ovens are used to dry organic materials, vapors may accumulate inside the oven and/or escape into the lab atmosphere. Take care to prevent developing explosive mixtures in air by not drying organic materials that can create these conditions.