Emptying into or filling from the wrong place

7 EMPTYING INTO OR FILLING FROM THE WRONG PLACE 

On many occasions tank trucks have been discharged into the wrong tank. The following incident is typical of many. 

Fortunately in this case the two materials did not react. People who have emptied acid into alkali tanks have been less fortunate. A plant received caustic soda in tank cars and acid in tank trucks. One day a load of caustic soda andved in a tank truck. It was labeled Caustic Soda, the delivery papers said it was caustic soda, and the hose connections were unusual. But the operators had a mind-set (see Section 3.3.5) that anything in a tank truck was acid, and they spent two hours making an adaptor to enable them to pump the contents of the tank truck into the acid tank. 

On other occasions tank trucks have been filled with the wrong material. In particular, liquid oxygen or liquid air has been supplied instead of liquid nitrogen. One incident, the result of confusion over labeling, was described in Section 4.1 (f). 

I do not know of any case in which delivery of liquid oxygen instead of liquid nitrogen caused an explosion. But, as stated in Section 12.3.1. in one case the nitrogen was used to inert a catalyst bed. and the catalyst got hot in another case a high-oxygen-concentration alarm in the plant sounded, and in several cases check analyses showed that oxygen had been supplied. 

---