Process analysis site characteristics

Hazard Analysis—The determination of material, system, process, and plant characteristics that can produce undesirable consequences, followed by the assessment of hazardous situations associated with a process or activity. Largely qualitative techniques are used to pinpoint weaknesses in design or operation of the facility that could lead to accidents. The Safety Analysis Report (SAR) hazard analysis examines the complete spectrum of potential accidents that could expose members of the public, on-site woikers, facility workers, and the environment to hazardous materials. 

Non-existent samples or reference values Samples may not exist because the plant does not exist yet (it is under construction and has not started up yet), or because the plant does not do any sampling at the process point of interest. Reference values may not exist because the plant lab is not set up to do that particular method, or (worse) there is no established reference method for the analyte of interest. In any of these cases, one is left with a calibration set that contains no samples. There are a number of ways to approach this challenge. If there are samples but no reference values, the plant samples can be sent off-site to be analyzed. The analyte concentration of interest can sometimes be estimated based on process conditions and/or the concentrations of other analytes. (This is one place where fixed covariance can come in handy.) If there is no plant yet, it may be possible to calibrate the analyzer elsewhere (different plant, semi-works, etc.). It may also be possible (or even necessary) to attempt lab value-less calibration, in which one assumes that the concentration of the analyte varies linearly with the height of an absorbance peak characteristic of that analyte (trend analysis). This works only if the spectroscopy of the system is well-characterized and if there are no significant overlaps between peaks and in any case it will only provide qualitative data. 

The purpose of this study is to apply the unique technique of Charged Particle Activation Analysis (CPAA) to distinguish the characteristics of the oxidation process from a different point of view and define parameters which can be determined by this technique. The parameters to be determined are (1) the kinetics of the adsorption of oxygen containing species, (2) the elemental composition of the oxide layer and how deeply it extends into the particle, and (3) the number of reactive sites on or near the surface. 

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