Recommendations development inherent safety

The development section serves as an intermediary between laboratory and industrial scale and operates the pilot plant. A dkect transfer from the laboratory to industrial-scale processes is stiH practiced at some small fine chemicals manufacturers, but is not recommended because of the inherent safety, environmental, and economic risks. Both equipment and plant layout of the pilot plant mirror those of an industrial multipurpose plant, except for the size (typically 100 to 2500 L) of reaction vessels and the degree of process automation. 

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. 

Rinard dedicated his research to a detailed analysis of methodological aspects of a micro-reactor plant concept which he also termed mini-plant production [85] (see also [4, 9, 10] for a commented, short description). Important criteria in this concept are JIT (Just-in-time) production, zero holdup, inherent safety, modularity and the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. Based on this conceptual definition, Rinard describes different phases in plant development. Essential for his entire work is the pragmatic way of finding process solutions, truly of hybrid character ]149] (miniaturization only where really needed). Recent investigations are concerned with the scalability of hybrid micro-reactor plants and the limits thereof ]149], Expliddy he recommends jointly using micro- and meso-scale components. 

These five categories are the predominant ones used since the development of this concept. Some companies add or subtract categories to their program to fine-tune their understanding and application. In an attempt to make these categories more understandable, the following four words have recently been recommended to describe inherent safety ... 

This chapter develops characteristics of high quality recommendations necessary for achieving successful implementation. The first section is a presentation of the major concepts related to recommendations, such as attributes of good recommendations, management of change, and inherent safety. The second section expands on the attributes and presents a systematic discussion of the flowchart for recommendations. 

Recommendations should be written clearly and should be practical to implement. Recommendations that target improvements to the inherent safety of the process design are preferred to those that merely add extra protection features. All recommendations will potentially change management systems therefore, it is necessary for the team to consider the imphcations of those changes when developing recommendations. 

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