CL7007

SAFETY AND HAZARDS IN CHEMICAL INDUSTRY

Lecture 4
(Module 1)

By
Dr. Nirupama
1
 Safety regulations
Laws and regulations are major tools for protecting people and the environment.
Congress is responsible for passing laws that govern the United States. To put these laws into effect,
Congress authorizes certain government organizations, including the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) and OSHA, to create and enforce regulations.
Regulations set specific rules about what is legal and what is not legal. For example, a regulation relevant
to the Clean Air Act will specify levels of specific toxic chemicals that are safe, quantities of the toxic
chemicals that are legally emitted into the air, and what penalties are given if the legal limits are
exceeded.
After the regulation is in effect, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) has the responsibility :
(1) to help citizens comply with the law and
(2) to enforce the regulation.
Occupational Health and Safety Administration
OSHA, created within the Department of Labor, U.S. Govt. in 1970, to bring uniformity to health and safety
standards. The OSH Act intends to prevent injury or illness among workers.
The power and responsibilities of OSHA include the following:
• To establish safety and health standards.
• To conduct workplace inspections and issue citations for health and safety violations.
• To require records of safety and health to be kept by employers, and in conjunction with the Department
of Health, keep occupational health and safety statistics.
• To train employers, employees and personnel employed to enforce the act.
• OSHA and the EPA share information.

International Labour Organization (ILO)

ILO(since 1919) has maintained and developed a system of international labour standards aimed at promoting
opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work, in conditions of freedom, equity,
security and dignity.
The ILO Constitution sets forth the principle that workers should be protected from sickness, disease and injury
arising from their employment.
 The Factories Act, 1948
• In India the first Factories Act was basically designed to protect children and to provide few
measures for health and safety of the workers.
• The Factories Act, 1948 came into force on the 1st day of April, 1949 and extends to the whole of
India. The Factories Act was amended in 1949, 1950, 1954, 1956, 1976 and 1989.
• The Act has been enacted primarily with the object of protecting workers employed in factories
against industrial and occupational hazards. For that purpose, it seeks to impose upon the owner
or the occupier certain obligations to protect the workers and to secure for them employment in
conditions conducive to their health and safety.
 Wind rose
❑Wind rose is a graphic tool to give a short view of how wind speed and direction are typically distributed at
a particular location.
❑Wind speed and direction are both important for evaluating weather conditions and climate and predicting
them. Moreover, these parameters influence processes such as evaporation rates, surface water mixing;
which further affect the water quality and the water level.

To create wind rose average wind direction and wind

speed values are logged at a site, at short intervals,
over a period of time, e.g. 1 week, 1 month or longer.
The collected wind data is then sorted by wind
direction so that the percentage of time that the wind
was blowing from each direction can be determined.
A wind rose is represented as a series of concentric circles with spokes where the length of each spoke
is linked with the frequency of wind blowing from a certain direction indicated by that particular spoke

❑The concentric circles highlight different frequencies

starting from zero at the centre and increasing to
greater frequencies moving outwards from the
centre.
❑The different colours of the spokes indicate the
different wind speeds.
❑Concentric circles represent percentage of time the
wind blows from each direction during the
observation period.
 Application of wind rose
❑Location specific metrological information may required for permitting, equipment design and layout and
construction of the new facility.
❑Local meteorological conditions may impact project design as well as life cycle costs. Temperatures have
an impact project design as well as life cycle costs. Temperatures have an impact on air cooled heat
exchange equipment efficiency and energy requirements.
❑Prevailing wind direction and associated speed is used to identify potentially impacted areas and
populations downwind of the release point.
✓ Air quality control (through pollution and odour dispersion)
✓ Flammable dispersion
❑Rain falling on facility processing typically requires oversized water treatment facilities.
 Hazards due to Fire
❑Fire hazards are an important concern. There are two main kinds of fire hazard. One is that from very
flammable materials, which may give rise quickly to a dangerous fire or explosion. The other is that from
fires in buildings, which may trap people by the spread of fire or smoke.
❑The thermal radiation intensity and the time duration of fires often are used to estimate injury (severity of
burns) and damage due to a fire.
❑Effect of fire : Skin burns due to thermal radiation

❑ Human skin can withstand a

heat radiation intensity of 10
kW/m2 for approximately 5
seconds and that of 30
kW/m2 for less than 0.4
seconds before pain is felt.
 Hazard due to explosion
EXPLOSION
❑An explosion as an event leading to a rapid increase of pressure. This pressure increase can be caused by:
nuclear reactions, loss of containment in high pressure vessels, high explosives, metal water vapour
explosions, runaway reactions, combustion of dust, mist or gas (incl. vapours) in air or in other oxidisers.
❑Result in a pressure wave.
❑Damage to materials and property
❑Explosives industry
❑Explosions of industrial chemicals outside the explosives industry.
 Hazard due to explosion
GAS EXPLOSIONS
❑ Gas explosion is a process where combustion of a premixed gas cloud, i.e. fuel-air or fuel-oxidiser, is causing
rapid increase of pressure. Gas explosions can occur inside process equipment or pipes, in buildings or
offshore modules, in open process areas or in unconfined areas.
❑The consequences of a gas explosion will depend on the environment in which the gas cloud is contained or
which the gas cloud engulfs. Therefore it has been common to classify a gas explosion from the environment
where the explosion takes place:
✓ Confined Gas Explosions within vessels, pipes, channels or tunnels.
✓ Partly Confined Gas Explosions in a compartment, buildings or off-shore modules and
✓ Unconfined Gas Explosions in process plants and other unconfined areas.
 Hazard due to explosion
CHEMICAL EXPOSURES
Sources of Exposure :
Periodic emissions :
They arise from the need to open or enter the ‘system’ occasionally, for example, during sampling,
cleaning, batch additions, line breaking etc. Periodic emissions tend to be large and include both
anticipated events and unplanned releases, in which human error may be a factor.
Fugitive emissions :
Small but continuous escapes from normally closed sources. 15-20 % of total volatile organic chemical
(VOC) emissions are fugitive. They occur from dynamic seals such as valve stems and pump or agitator
shafts and from static seals such as flange gaskets.
 Release of hazardous materials
❑Toxic releases may consist of continuous releases or instantaneous emissions.
❑Continuous releases usually involve low levels of toxic emissions, which are regularly monitored and/or
controlled. Such releases include continuous stack emissions and open or aerated chemical processes in
which certain volatile compounds are allowed to be stripped off into the atmosphere through aeration or
agitation.
❑Greater concern is warranted for the case of an instantaneous release, which is usually the result of an
uncontrolled process. Most of these incidents are the result of a highway or railway accident or a fire,
windstorm, or other natural accident. However, the cause can sometimes be linked to the breakdown of
normal safeguards in plants, factories, mines, or chemical storage facilities. Whatever the cause, the result
is often a significant potential threat to life, property, and/or file environment.
 Radiation hazard
• Radioactive materials that decay spontaneously produce ionizing radiation, which has sufficient energy to strip away
electrons from atoms (creating two charged ions) or to break some chemical bonds.

• Any living tissue in the human body can be damaged by ionizing radiation in a unique manner. The body attempts to
repair the damage, but sometimes the damage is of a nature that cannot be repaired or it is too severe or widespread
to be repaired.

• Also mistakes made in the natural repair process can lead to cancerous cells. The most common forms of ionizing
radiation are alpha and beta particles, or gamma and X- rays.
In general, the amount and duration of radiation exposure affects the severity or type of health effect.
There are two broad categories of health effects: stochastic and non-stochastic.
Stochastic Health Effects
Stochastic effects are associated with long-term, low-level (chronic) exposure to radiation. Increased levels of exposure
make these health effects more likely to occur, but do not influence the type or severity of the effect.
Cancer is considered by most people the primary health effect from radiation exposure. Damage occurring at the
cellular or molecular level, can disrupt the control processes, permitting the uncontrolled growth of cells cancer This is
why ionizing radiation's ability to break chemical bonds in atoms and molecules makes it such a potent carcinogen.
Non-Stochastic Health Effects
Non-stochastic effects appear in cases of exposure to high levels of radiation, and become more severe as the
exposure increases. Short-term, high-level exposure is referred to as 'acute' exposure.
 Radiation hazard

❑Many non-cancerous health effects of radiation are non-stochastic. Unlike cancer, health effects from
'acute' exposure to radiation usually appear quickly.
❑Acute health effects include burns and radiation sickness. Radiation sickness is also called 'radiation
poisoning.' It can cause premature aging or even death. If the dose is fatal, death usually occurs within two
months.
❑The symptoms of radiation sickness include: nausea, weakness, hair loss, skin burns or diminished organ
function.
❑Medical patients receiving radiation treatments often experience acute effects, because they are receiving
relatively high "bursts" of radiation during treatment.
Reference
• https://nptel.ac.in/courses/103/106/103106071/
• Chemical Process Safety: Fundamentals with Applications: Daniel A.
Crowl and J.F.Louvar