Options for safe treatment and disposal

Containment without any discharge to the atmosphere is one possibility. This may be either in the reactor itself (with a sufficiently high design pressure) or in a separate vessel with top or bottom relief from the reactor to the secondary containment vessel. If containment is not possible, a good strategy is to separate the gas/ vapour phase from the liquid phase. The liquid can then be held for subsequent recycle or disposal, and the gas/ vapour phase can be treated, e.g. by scrubbing or flaring, or vented direct to the atmosphere if sufficiently innocuous. 

If necessary, a means of stopping continuing reaction should be built into the disposal system. The two possibilities for this are  

Huckins121 gives advantages and disadvantages of different types of disposal system. This is very useful in the selection of an appropriate system.  

The presence of a disposal system may reduce the reliability of the total relief system. For example  

In some cases (e.g. (b) and (c) above), failure of the disposal system will lead to release of untreated hazardous material to atmosphere. In other,cases, (e.g. (a) above), failure could lead to overpressurisation of the reactor as well as release of untreated material to the environment. Consideration needs to be given to the effect of the disposal system on the overall reliability and integrity of the relief system. Some limited information on the reliability of relief systems is given by Parry141. 

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