Hazard inherent safety process

Inherent safety Inventory reduction Fewer chemicals inventoried or fewer in process vessels. Chemical substitution Substitute a less hazardous chemical for one more hazardous. Fr ocess attenuation Use lower temperatures and pressures. 

Understanding the chemistry of the process also provides the greatest opportunity in applying the principles of inherent safety at the chemical synthesis stage. Process chemistry greatly determines the potential impact of the processing facility on people and the environment. It also determines such important safety variables as inventory, ancillary unit operations, by-product disposal, etc. Creative design and selection of process chemistry can result in the use of inherently safer chemicals, a reduction in the inventories of hazardous chemicals and/or a minimization of waste treatment requirements. 

The standard operating procedures demand great attention as they reflect personnel safety issues, safe operating limits and quality considerations. They should be written simply and clearly. The level of detail is determined by the training and experience of the operations staff but should also take into account the hazards inherent in the process. 

Hazards can be reduced or eliminated by changing the materials, chemistry, and process variables such that the reduced hazard is characteristic of the new conditions. The process with reduced hazards is described as inherently safer. This terminology recognizes there is no chemical process that is without risk, but all chemical processes can be made safer by applying inherently safer concepts. This book occasionally uses the term inherent safety this does not mean absolute safety. 

In many cases, the inherent safety advantages of one process are clear when compared with alternatives. One or more hazards may be significantly reduced, while others are unaffected or only marginally increased. For example, aqueous latex paints are clearly inherently safer than solvent based paints, although there are applications where the increased performance of solvent based paints justifies their use, with the appropriate layers of protection. 

An inherently safer process offers greater safety potential, often at a lower cost. However, selection of an inherently safer technology does not guarantee that the actual implementation of that technology will result in a safer operation than an alternate process which is inherently safer. The traditional strategy of providing layers of protection for an inherently more hazardous process can be quite effective, although the expenditure of resources to install and maintain the layers of protection... 

Deciding among a number of process options having inherent safety advantages and disadvantages with respect to different hazards can be quite difficult. The first step is to understand thoroughly all hazards associated with the process options. Process hazard analysis and evaluation techniques are appropriate tools (CCPS, 1992). These include ... 

The combination of several unit operations into a single piece of equipment can eliminate equipment and simplify a process. There may be inherent safety conflicts resulting from this strategy (see Section 2.4). Combining a number of process operations into a single device increases the complexity of that device, but it also reduces the number of vessels or other pieces of equipment required for the process. Careful evaluation of the options with respect to all hazards is necessary to select the inherently safer overall option. 

Basic process chemistry using less hazardous materials and chemical reactions offers the greatest potential for improving inherent safety in the chemical industry. Alternate chemistry may use less hazardous raw material or intermediates, reduced inventories of hazardous materials, or less severe processing conditions. Identification of catalysts to enhance reaction selectivity or to allow desired reactions to be carried out at a lower temperature or pressure is often a key to development of inherently safer chemical synthesis routes. Some specific examples of innovations in process chemistry which result in inherently safer processes include ... 

The chemistry of side reactions and by-products may also offer opportunities for increasing the inherent safety of a process. For example, a process involving a caustic hydrolysis step uses ethylene dichloride (EDC 1,2-dichloroethane) as a solvent. Under the reaction conditions a side reaction between sodium hydroxide and EDC produces small but hazardous quantities of vinyl chloride ... 

Innovative chemical synthesis procedures have been proposed as offering potential for economical and environmentally friendly routes to a variety of chemicals. These novel chemical reactions also offer potential for increasing the inherent safety of processes by eliminating hazardous materials, eliminating chemical intermediates, or allowing... 

Synthetic rubber latex was made by a process with a large and hazardous inventory of butadiene and styrene. In a modified process, the reactor has an initial charge of water and emulsifier. Also, the monomers are added to the reactor as one premixed stream and the emulsified aqueous sodium persulfate is added as the other stream. The improved scheme, discussed by Englund (1991a) contains less hazardous material and at a lower, more controllable temperature. It illustrates that large and established processes may be made safer by applying inherent safety. 

The safety status of the process should be periodically reviewed against the guiding principles for the original design. Monitoring of add-ons can detect potentially dangerous modifications. Process hazards analysis or process safety audits are useful tools for this review. Documentation of inherently safer principles is critical to ensure that future changes don t nullify the positive features of the initial installation. 

The first major objective for the inherent safety review is the development of a good understanding of the hazards involved in the process. Early understanding of these hazards provides time for the development team to implement recommendations of the inherent safety effort. Hazards associated with flammability, pressure, and temperature are relatively easy to identify. Reactive chemistry hazards are not. They are frequently difficult to identify and understand in the lab and pilot plant. Special calorimetry equipment and expertise are often necessary to fully characterize the hazards of runaway reactions and decompositions. Similarly, industrial hygiene and toxicology expertise is desirable to help define and understand health hazards associated with the chemicals employed. 

Reducing and eliminating hazards and their associated risks is the second major objective. Applying inherent safety principles early in the product/process development effort provides the greatest opportunity to achieve the objectives of the inherent safety review process for the project at hand. If these principles are applied late in the effort the results may have to be applied to the project after next as the schedule may not permit implementation of the results. 

Systematically review the process flow schematic looking at each process step and hazardous material to identify creative ways to improve the process by applying inherent safety principles to reduce or eliminate hazards. 

During process hazards reviews (such as HAZOP), inherent safety concepts are also considered. Mistake proofing the design should receive attention and each safety critical device (last line of defense) and safety critical procedure should be examined to see if there is a way to eliminate the need for the device or procedure. 

Experience has shown that reactive chemistry hazards are sometimes undetected during bench scale and pilot plant development of new products and processes. Reactive chemistry hazards must be identified so they can be addressed in the inherent safety review process. Chemists should be encouraged and trained to explore reactive chemistry of "off-normal operations. Simple reactive chemicals screening tools, such as the interactions matrix described in Section 4.2, can be used by R D chemists. 

Companies may wish to develop workshops to train potential team members in the inherent safety review process. The workshop can provide background information on inherent safety concepts, the extensive systems required to manage hazardous materials, and information on the inherent safety review process. Videos, problems, examples, and team exercises can be included to enliven the education process. 

Implementing an inherent safety review process is one mechanism companies can use to institutionalize inherent safety. The review process should integrate well with company systems for process safety management, new product development, and project execution. Safety, health, and environmental considerations in the new product or process development effort can be strengthened via the introduction of the inherent safety review. Companies may also build inherently safer design concepts into their existing process safety management system and process hazard reviews. 

The following checklist contains a number of questions which can aid in identifying inherently safer process options. The list is adapted from CCPS (1993a). Other checklists, particularly the extensive checklist in Appendix B of the Guidelines for Hazard Evaluation Procedures, 2nd Edition with Worked Examjzles (CCPS, 1992) contain many questions which are related to inherent safety. 

Inherent hazard (e.g., toxicity, stability, reactivity) Cost Renewability Recyclability Size (volume) Scalability Controllability Energy (i.e., total, heating, cooling, recovery, treatment, etc.) Ease of cleaning and maintenance Safety/process safety ... 

The approach to developing metrics for process safety is analogous to those that might be used to assess Occupational Exposure risk. One can cite as well several indices that have been developed as metrics for estimating and ranking the safety of a given process or chemical reaction, such as the DOW fire and explosion index,the Stoessel index ° for hazard assessment and classification of chemical reactions, the Inherent Safety Index, the Prototype Index for Inherent Safety, amongst others. ... 

Inherent safety concept. This route requires the deepest understanding of the chemical process, and, accordingly, of the potential hazards. It is not easy, even at a high degree of understanding, to eliminate mistakes in assessment. However, this approach is strongly supported by many specialists in problems of safety in the chemical industry. According to Kletz(1983) ... 

In general, the safety of a process relies on multiple layers of protection. The first layer of protection is the process design features. Subsequent layers include control systems, interlocks, safety shutdown systems, protective systems, alarms, and emergency response plans. Inherent safety is a part of all layers of protection however, it is especially directed toward process design features. The best approach to prevent accidents is to add process design features to prevent hazardous situations. An inherently safer plant is more tolerant of operator errors and abnormal conditions. 

An important concept in process safety is inherent safety. This means that the process is designed in such a fashion as to prevent hazards from resulting in an accident. 

The safety of a chemical process can be achieved through internal (inherent) and external means. The inherent safety (Kletz, 1984) is related to the intrinsic properties of the process e.g. the use of safer chemicals and operations. The essence of the inherent safety is to avoid and remove hazards rather than to control them by added-on protective systems, which is the principle of external safety. The largest payoffs are achieved by verifying that inherent safety has been considered early and often in the process and engineering design (Lutz, 1997). 

Inherent safety has first widely expressed in the late 1970 s by Trevor Kletz. The basic principles are common sense and include avoiding the use of hazardous materials, minimising the inventories of hazardous materials and aiming for simpler processes with more bening and moderate process alternatives (Kletz, 1984). 

The inherent safety is the pursuit of designing hazards out of a process, as opposed to using engineering or procedural controls to mitigate risk. Therefore inherent safety strives to avoid and remove hazards rather than to control them by added-on systems. The inherent safety is best considered in the initial stages of design, when the choice of process route and concept is made. 

The P.I.I.S. developed by Edwards and Lawrence (1993) is intended for estimating inherent safety of reaction hazards in conceotual design stage. The P.I.I.S. is intended for analysing the choice of process route i.e. the raw materials and the sequence of the reaction steps. 

Table 5 illustrates inherent safety parameters and the selection of them by Edwards and Lawrence (1993) and Heikkila et al. (1996). E.g. inventory has been chosen by both. It is relative to the capacity of a process and residence times (hold-up s) in vessels. It has a large effect on the degree of hazard and it should be kept small by intensification. 

---