Safety plant

Health and safety of personnel and loss prevention are paramount concerns of the chemical industry. Injuries and property damage have high costs, not the least of which are business interruption and loss of trained personnel or equipment. Over the years, worker fatalities have decreased and lost time has leveled, but property losses have increased. 

As of the early 1990s, annual worker fatalities ran about 9 per 100,000 employees annual lost-time disabling injuries ran about 4,000 per 100,000 employees (1). Property losses increased fourfold from the 1970s (2). The trends in fatalities and property losses can probably be ascribed to the increasing complexity and productivity of the highly automated chemical plants, where personnel are isolated from processes. Whereas exposure to health and safety hazards maybe reduced, the ability of experienced operating personnel to sense process problems and to correct these problems frequently is decreased. Another aspect of process management which has tended to increase hazards is the effort to reduce the formation of wastes and undesired by-products. This effort requires dose approach to temperature and pressure limits, at which points loss of control can be catastrophic (see Process control). Process and plant safety issues have been discussed (3—8). 

The responsibility of chemical process managers for preventing air, water, and soil pollution has indirectly influenced plant safety by requiring better control of plant processes to prevent releases of hazardous materials. Regulatory legislation was introduced by the Health, Education, and Welfare Department (Health and Human Services) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to require (/) improvements in air quality (1955 Air Pollution Act  

1963 Clean Air Act and its amendments in 1970, 1977, and 1990 1967 Air Quality Standards and National Air Pollution Acts and 1970 National Environmental Policy Act) (2) better waste disposal practices (1965 Solid Waste Disposal Act 1976 Resource Conservation and Recovery Act) (see Wastes, industrial Waste treatment, hazardous wastes) (S) reduced noise levels (1972 Noise Control Act) (4) improved control of the manufacture and use of toxic materials (1976 Toxic Substances Control Act) and (5) assignment of responsibility to manufacturers for product safety (1972 Consumer Product Safety Act) (15,16). 

Description Location Date Fatalities Serious injury 

Description Locatioa Date Eatahties Serious iajury 

A more recent OSHA development has been the availabihty of personnel from OSHA and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) for consultation to identify, evaluate, and correct workplace ha2ards (20). 

Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology (4th Edition) 

Long before a test plant is built, that is, already during the constmction of the laboratory apparatus and at the beginning of the planning phase, the first consideration of the safety concept must be made. The first step is to gather the relevant substance data (Section 3.2). Then the necessary auxiliary substances are considered (must an AI liquid be used, or is a B classified solvent adequate ). For the transition from alabora-tory to a pilot plant, a detailed safety concept must be provided and discussed with the relevant departments (head of pilot plant, safety department, etc.). At the end of process development all safety-relevant aspects must be documented. This document is the basis of the safety studies (Section 5.2.2) in the framework of the feasibility study (Section 5.1). 

The hazard potential posed by a chemical plant depends mainly on the materials used (raw materials, products, auxiliaries) and their possible chemical reactions. Therefore, knowledge of properties (Section 3.2) of all handled materials (data of pure materials) and their mixtures (binary and ternary data) are indispensible for safety considerations. In addition to physicochemical data, the ecotoxicological and safety data are required. 

Many safety-relevant characteristic properties are members of the family of so-called soft material data, which are often determined in standardized test apparatus (e.g., flash point). They can be used to assess the potential hazard posed by a chemical or mixture of chemicals and thus the safety measures for their handling. 

Since air is ubiquitous, there is the risk of formation of ignitible mixtures when flammable substances are handled. For combustion to take place, the following prerequisites must be fulfilled  

If one of these is not present, combustion (appearence of flames) can not occur. 

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