Safety in chemical processes

Rogers, R. L., D. P. Mansfield, Y. Malmen, R. D. Turney, and M. Verwoerd (1995). The INSIDE Project Integrating Inherent Safety in Chemical Process Development and Plant Design. International Symposium on Runaway Reactions and Pressure Relief Design, August 2-4, 1995, Boston, MA, ed. G. A. Melhem and H. G. Fisher, 668-689. New York American Institute of Chemical Engineers. 

Relative safety in chemical process industry Table 2. Different definitions of risk . 

Safety, Health, and Loss Prevention in Chemical Processes Student Problems Instmctor s Guide for Undergraduate Engineering Curricula Ha2ard Evaluation Procedures, with Worked Examples, 2nd ed. 

The American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE) has a 30-year history of involvement with process safety for chemical processing plants. Through its strong ties with process designers, builders, operators, safety professionals and academia, the AIChE has enhanced communication and fostered improvement in the high safety standards of the industry. AIChE publications and symposia have become an information resource for the chemical engineering profession on the causes of accidents and means of prevention. 

For the first time, all the essential elements and components of a model of a technical management program in chemical process safety have been assembled in one document. We believe the Guidelines provide the umbrella under which all other CCPS Technical Guidelines will be promulgated. 

Davenport, J. A. 1983. A Study of Vapor Cloud Incidents—An Update. Fourth Interna-tional Symposium on Loss Prevention and Safety in the Process Industries. European Federation of Chemical Engineering, Sept. 1983, Harrogate, England. 

Introduction The Role of Human Error in Chemical Process Safety... 

Chapter 1, The Role of Human Error in Chemical Process Safety, discusses the importance of reducing human error to an effective process safety effort at the plant. The engineers, managers, and process plant personnel in the CPI need to replace a perspective that has a blame and punishment view of error with a systems viewpoint that sees error as a mismatch between human capabilities and demands. 

Safety PI may drastically increase the safety of chemical processes. It is obvious that smaller is safer. For instance, material inventories will be lower, which is safer in case of hazardous substances. Moreover, keeping processes under control is easier because of PI, for instance, by efficient heat removal from exothermic reactions. 

In order to exemplify the potential of micro-channel reactors for thermal control, consider the oxidation of citraconic anhydride, which, for a specific catalyst material, has a pseudo-homogeneous reaction rate of 1.62 s at a temperature of 300 °C, corresponding to a reaction time-scale of 0.61 s. In a micro channel of 300 pm diameter filled with a mixture composed of N2/02/anhydride (79.9 20 0.1), the characteristic time-scale for heat exchange is 1.4 lO" s. In spite of an adiabatic temperature rise of 60 K related to such a reaction, the temperature increases by less than 0.5 K in the micro channel. Examples such as this show that micro reactors allow one to define temperature conditions very precisely due to fast removal and, in the case of endothermic reactions, addition of heat. On the one hand, this results in an increase in process safety, as discussed above. On the other hand, it allows a better definition of reaction conditions than with macroscopic equipment, thus allowing for a higher selectivity in chemical processes. 

Approaching the subject from a practical point of view, how many plants actually are performing safety-relevant chemical processes. In an older study, the share of safety-relevant plants in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate are listed [173]. It is assumed here that the trend given there still is valid. 

A publication summarises all the then available technical evidence related to the Seveso accident, and recommends operational criteria to ensure safety in commercial processes to produce trichlorophenol [4], All the plant scale incidents were characterised [ 1 ] by the subsequent occurrence of chloracne arising from the extremely toxic and dermatitic compound 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzodioxin (structure IX, p. S-3), formed dining the thermal runaway reaction and dispersed in the ensuing explosion. It is also extremely resistant to normal chemical decontamination procedures, and after the 1968 explosion, further cases occurred after transient contact with plant... 

Since 1950, significant technological advances have been made in chemical process safety. Today, safety is equal in importance to production and has developed into a scientific discipline that includes many highly technical and complex theories and practices. Examples of the technology of safety include... 

Safety, hazard, and risk are frequently-used terms in chemical process safety. Their definitions are... 

Joseph F. Louvar retired as director of BASF s Chemical Engineering Department to become a professor at Wayne State University, specializing in chemical process safety, risk assessment, and the design of experiments. He has authored many publications on process safety and chairs the Undergraduate Education Committee of the CCPS. 

Since the first edition was published, many universities have developed courses or course content in chemical process safety. This new emphasis on process safety is the result of the positive influences from industry and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Based on faculty feedback, this textbook is an excellent application of the fundamental topics that are taught in the first three years of the undergraduate education. 

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