Nypro Limited

The Flixborough Works of Nypro Limited was designed to produce 70,000 tons per year of caprolactam, a basic raw material for the production of nylon. The process uses cyclohexane,... 

One of the best known explosion disasters took place in Flixborough, England, in 1974. Nypro Limited manufactured 70,000 tons/year of caprolactam as intermediate for the manufacturing of nylon. This is done by air oxidation of cyclohexane to cyclo-hexanol, with the help of a number of catalysts in the reactors. At that time, cracks developed in the reactor combined with pipe rupture, which released 30 tons of cyclohexane in a cloud. It was ignited by an unknown source and exploded, which resulted in 28 deaths and 36 injured, and the fire burned for 10 days. This disaster was also devastating to the future of the company. 

NANOPHASE TECHNOLOGIES CORP NATUREWORKS LLC NEWELL RUBBERMAID INC NEWMARKET CORPORATION NIPPON SODA CO LTD NITTO DENKO CORPORATION NL INDUSTRIES INC NORTH AMERICAN PIPE INC NOVA CHEMICALS CORPORATION NUFARM LIMITED NYPRO INC... 

This accident occurred on June 1, 1974 at the Flixborough Works of Nypro (United Kingdom) Limited when a bypass system ruptured and released cyclohexane, which in turn formed a combustible mixture with air and then exploded on coming in contact with an ignition source [1,10,11]. As the result of this accident, 28 workers were killed and 36 injured [1,10,11]. Two of the active influencing maintenance factors were as follows [1,10] ... 

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