Chemical Reactivity Hazards

Chemical reactivity hazards still exist even if a plant doesn’t intentionally run chemical reactions. Chemical reactivity hazards can be manifest through: 

  • Materials which become chemically unstable for a variety of reasons,
  • Intended chemical reactions that get out of control for a variety of reasons
  • Unintended chemical reactions that take place due to accidental mixing of chemicals that are normally separate

Read Reactive Material Hazards, What You Need to Know, and explore other resources below.

Emergency Block Valves

Apr 4, 2012
Joe Viviano
An Emergency Block Valves (EBV) is used as a means of isolating flammable or toxic substances in the event of a leak or fire. The installation, and use, of EBV's in many hydrocarbon services will significantly reduce the potential of fire and explosion damages caused by loss of hydrocarbon...

Auto Refrigeration and Metal Embrittlement

Apr 3, 2012
Tys Koerts
Abstract AIChE Housten Conference April 1-4 2012 Loss Of Containment Protection Auto Refrigeration and Metal Embrittlement Tys Koerts Sr. Process Safety Consultant Auto-refrigeration occurs on adiabatic expansion of gasses and boiling of liquids. The resulting low temperature can bring metals like...

Explosion Hazards of Multicomponent Combustible Gas Mixtures

Apr 2, 2012
Alfonso F. Ibarreta
Laminar and turbulent premixed flame burning velocities are two parameters that are sometimes needed to evaluate explosion hazards. There is ample information in the literature regarding the burning velocities of most common ignitable gases and vapors in air. Little information, however, is...

The CCPS Reactivity Evaluation Software Tool

Apr 2, 2012
Edward M. Davis
Incidents involving uncontrolled chemical reactions continue to result in injuries, fatalities and economic loss and harm in industry. These incidents are often the result of not identifying or understanding the chemical reactivity hazards involved in storage, mixing or processing operations. The...

Prediction of Corrosion in Pipes

Apr 2, 2012
Sally S. Nicola
ABSTRACT AIChE Spring 2012 Meeting Prediction of Corrosion in Pipes Sally Nicola, Victor Carreto, Ray A. Mentzer, M. Sam Mannan Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, Texas A&M University sally.nicola@neo.tamu.edu Corrosion is one of the most important mechanical integrity issues the...

Guidelines for Identifying and Mitigating Thermal Hazards of Sustainable Materials

Mar 14, 2011
Delmar R. Morrison
Sustainable materials and technologies (a.k.a. ?Green?) are those that are ?delivered with progressively less negative impact upon the Earth.? Thermal hazards such as self-heating, thermal runaway, fires, and explosions may be associated with a particular sustainable material or process technology...

Inherently Safer Reactor Design for Complex Reactions Based On Calorimetry Studies

Mar 13, 2011
Alba Lucia Pineda
A number of reactive processes of the agrochemical, fine-chemicals and pharmaceutical industries involve thermally unstable and/or toxic reactants, products or intermediates, for which the chemistry, thermochemistry and thermodynamic properties are barely known. They frequently employ multipurpose...

Kinetic Modeling of the Reactions Involved in the T2 Explosion

Mar 13, 2011
Ronald J. Willey
The runaway reaction at the chemical preparation facility called T2 laboratories in Jacksonville, Florida on December 19, 2007 is analyzed. The approached involved estimating kinetic parameters based on temperature time traces presented in the CSB final report for ARSST (Advance Reactive System...

Safety Studies for Reformatsky Chemistry In a Meso-Scale Continuous Process System

Mar 13, 2011
Gabriel Loh
The production of fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals has been traditionally achieved via batch processes. More recently, there has been interest in using multiscale (meso- and micro-) reactors for the production of these fine chemicals and pharmaceuticals. These efforts in process intensification...

Flame Flashbacks: Causes and Prevention

AIChE Webinar
Apr 7, 2010
Dan Banks, P.E.

This webinar addresses the principle of flammability of vapor/air mixtures, including flammability limits, ignition temperatures, the effect of inerts and how to determine the flammability of any particular mixture.

Burn Injury Caused by Mixing Incompatible Chemicals with Sodium Permanganate

Mar 23, 2010
Russell A. Ogle
This paper discusses the investigation of an accident caused by the mixing of incompatible chemicals, a strong oxidizing agent with a reducing agent. The exact mixture and sequence of mixing was unknown, but the materials included an aqueous solution of 40% sodium permanganate (NaMnO4) and possibly...

Thermal Stability of Chemicals Based on Kinetics and Vessel Parameters

Mar 21, 2010
Amy Theis
Thermal stability of a chemical mixture or pure material can be evaluated using adiabatic calorimetry. Several calorimetry testing instruments and techniques will be used and compared for a comprehensive evaluation. Results from these tests can be used to determine kinetic parameters which can be...

Assessing the Burning Rate of Solid Oxidizers

Mar 21, 2010
Elizabeth C. Buc
A method for assigning solid oxidizers and products containing oxidizers to an NFPA Class was developed. The method consists of two reaction-to-fire tests: a bench-scale screening test with thirty gram piles and an intermediate-scale fire exposure test with twenty four pounds of material in...

Teaching Reactive Chemical Hazards to Chemical Engineers

AIChE Webinar
Mar 3, 2010
Daniel Crowl

This webinar presents an introduction to how industry handles reactive chemical hazards, and provides resource material to teach this subject in an existing course in chemical engineering.

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