Chemical Engineering

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The accident at Bhopal on the night of December 2-3, 1984 was the world's worst accident, resulting in the immediate death of approximately 4,000 and the subsequent death of over 16,000, with life long injuries suffered by over 200,000 followed by genetic mutations to affect several generations of offsprings. The pollution of water bodies is affecting several hundred thousand more. No other recorded accident anywhere in the world has produced even 10% of the above casualties and life-long effects. In this paper, we will briefly describe the accident and the significant effects it has had on regulations, process development and design, training, teaching, RD, etc., all impacting process safety. © 2004 IChemE.

(SoE) School of Engineering

Institution of Chemical Engineers Symposium Series

Bhopal and the global movement on process safety

Journal of Hazardous Materials

Bhopal gas tragedy and its effects on process safety International Conference on the 20th Anniversary of the Bhopal gas tragedy, December 1-3, 2004, Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur

Environmental Health Perspectives

Bhopal: No silver linings [2]

The accident at the Union Carbide Plant in Bhopal on the night of December 2-3, 1984 was the worst accident resulting in the immediate death of approximately 4,000 and the subsequent death, over the years, of another over 16,000 with life long injuries suffered by over 200,000 followed by genetic mutations to affect several generations of offsprings. The pollution of water bodies is affecting several hundred thousand more. No other recorded accident anywhere in the world has produced even 10% of the above casualties and life-long effects. In this paper, we will briefly describe the accident and the significant effects it has had on regulations, process development and design, training, teaching, RD, etc., all impacting process safety.

Progress in Safety Science and Technology Volume 4:Proceedings of the 2004 International Symposium on Safety Science and Technology

Bhopal accident and its effect on process safety worldwide

The effectiveness of inherently safer design (ISD) is discussed. There is an alternative philosophy of inherent safety or primary prevention, where the possibility of accidents is removed by the use of safer chemicals and operations. In ISD approach, hazards are identified early and then avoided or at least minimized. The principles of ISD were first enunciated by Trevor Kletz in 1974.

World University root node

Chemical Engineer

Losing control: Why plants fail

Employing equipment reliability databases can generate a process of continual improvement. This paper suggests a methodology that uses equipment reliability databases, and a process of benchmarking to establish a continual improvement procedure by learning "how others are doing it". A simple decision-making procedure is suggested too, to assist in prioritizing the processes/equipment that are considered to be improved as well as a methodology to measure the improvement. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Use of failure rate databases and process safety performance measurements to improve process safety

Inherently safer design (ISD) concepts have been with us for over two decades since their elaboration by Kletz [Chem. Ind. 9 (1978) 124]. Interest has really taken off globally since the early nineties after several major mishaps occurred during the eighties (Bhopal, Mexico city, Piper-alfa, Philips Petroleum, to name a few). Academic and industrial research personnel have been actively involved into devising inherently safer ways of production. The regulatory bodies have also shown deep interest since ISD makes the production safer and hence their tasks easier. Research funding has also been forthcoming for new developments as well as for demonstration projects. A natural question that arises is as to how to measure ISD characteristics of a process? Several researchers have worked on this [Trans. IChemE, Process Safety Environ. Protect. B 71 (4) (1993) 252; Inherent safety in process plant design, Ph.D. Thesis, VTT Publication Number 384, Helsinki University of Technology, Espoo, Finland, 1999; Proceedings of the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center Symposium, 2001, p. 509]. Many of the proposed methods are very elegant, yet too involved for easy adoption by the industry which is scared of yet another safety analysis regime. In a recent survey [Trans. IChemE, Process Safety Environ. Prog. B 80 (2002) 115], companies desired a rather simple method to measure ISD. Simplification is also an important characteristic of ISD. It is therefore desirable to have a simple ISD measurement procedure. The ISD measurement procedure proposed in this paper can be used to differentiate between two or more processes for the same end product. The salient steps are: Consider each of the important parameters affecting the safety (e.g., temperature, pressure, toxicity, flammability, etc.) and the range of possible values these parameters can have for all the process routes under consideration for an end product. Plot these values for each step in each process route and compare. No addition of values for disparate hazards (temperature, pressure, inventory, toxicity, flammability, etc.) is being suggested to derive an overall ISD index value since that conceals the effects of different parameters. Further, addition of numbers with different units (°C for temperature, atm/bar for pressure, t for inventory, etc.) is inappropriate in scientific sense. The proposed approach has a major advantage of expanding consideration in future to incorporate economic, regulatory, pollution control and worker health aspects, as well as factors such as the experience one has or 'the comfort level' one feels with each of the processes under consideration. Additionally, it would also guide the designers and decision makers into affecting specific changes in the processes to reduce the unsafe features. We demonstrate our simple approach by using the example of six routes to make methyl methacrylate as documented by Edwards and Lawrence [Trans. IChemE, Process Safety Environ. Protect. B 71 (4) (1993) 252; Quantifying inherent safety of chemical process routes, Ph.D. Thesis, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK, 1996] and show that the decision could well have been different if addition of disparate hazards had not been done. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

A simple graphical method for measuring inherent safety

The Dow Fire and Explosion Index (F&EI) is universally used in evaluating the hazard category of a process plant, area of exposure, expected losses in case of fire and explosion, etc. In the current procedure, the effects of the loss control measures (LCMs) on the F&EI value are not taken into account. This makes the plant look more hazardous, makes it more spread out, requires more elaborate emergency measures and alarms the public and the civil administration more than is necessary. It also affects the insurance premium. We suggest taking the effects of the LCMs into account in the F&EI value. We call this the 'Offset F&EI' value. It favorably affects all the above items, and other related ones. To do this, we have developed the relevant equations and have proved the efficacy of the Offset F&EI by means of an example. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries

Calculation of Fire and Explosion Index (F and EI) value for the Dow Guide taking credit for the loss control measures

The recent publication by the US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) concerning its findings on the Concept Sciences Inc. (CSI) incident involving hydroxylamine (HA) has raised issues with regard to safe production of HA. This CSI incident was followed by another incident that destroyed the Nissin Chemical HA plant in Japan, and today BASF is the sole commercial producer of HA. HA is an important solvent in the pharmaceutical industry and is used as an etching agent in the semi-conductor industry. This paper discusses a Quantitative Risk Assessment of a generic HA production plant, which integrates the findings of the CSB report and the knowledge of potential HA reactivity hazards based on research at the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center. The intent is to highlight safety concerns and major risk factors in the production and handling of HA and to provide risk assessment guidelines for potential manufacturers. These guidelines are also applicable to the production strategies for other hazardous chemicals. © 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.