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Run Away Reaction

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24 views2 pages

Run Away Reaction

Uploaded by

teshomemaramawit9
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Run away reaction

Runaway reactions are a major source of industrial accidents. They can occur in a wide array of
sectors, including chemicals, petrochemicals, food processing, plastics and rubber
manufacturing, and metalworking and are primarily caused by a loss of process control. The
processes involved are quite diverse, encompassing chemical reaction, polymerization and
distillation, among others. The loss of process control is related with various factors that are
examined in this article. A Thermally unstable reaction sy stem which exhibits an uncontrolled
accelerating rate of reaction leading to rapid increase in temperature and pressure. Run away
reaction are a major source of industrial accident.

The safety operability of chemical reactor is highly dependent on the appropriates design of
safety as well as control systems of technology. Many products are manufactured according to
very precise processes, and the proper functioning of these processes requires strict
specification of temperature, pressure, respective quantities of each reagent, stirring speed,
etc. Any drift in any one of these parameters could trigger a loss of process control. A
transformer caught on fire at 7:45 pm on a production building’s basement floor at a Severs lower tier-
rated pharmaceutical plant. The building’s electrical power was cut, causing shutdown of the reactors’
stirring and cooling mechanisms. An exothermic reaction that was taking place at the time became
uncontrollable. The reactor’s rupture disc, calibrated at 4 bar, broke, and the explosion vent opened to
protect the structural integrity of the reactor. A quantity of the reaction mix at 70°C, composed of
several hazardous products, projected onto one employee and six fire-fighters in the vicinity and formed
a 60-m² puddle on the floor.

The plant operator activated the internal emergency plan and the facility was evacuated. The safety
report conducted on-site had not identified any comparable scenario. No backup source had been
allocated to ensure the continued

This category contributes a significant source of loss of control incidents. The accidents
catalogued in the ARIA database reveal that human error is regularly highlighted as a cause —
for example, a valve left open; a wrong reagent injection; failure to complete an intermediate
step during product manufacturing; hastily or excessively introducing one of the reagents;
improvised initiatives such as repeating the addition of a catalyst to initiate a reaction that is
slow to start.

A reactor exploded in a fine chemicals plant during the chlorination of an alcohol by thionyl
chloride (SOCl2). The relatively non-exothermic reaction took place in a solvent medium (1,2
dichloromethane or DCE), under a slightly lower pressure and a temperature of 70°C
maintained by means of steam injection. The reactor initially contained the SOCl2 in solution in
the DCE, with the alcohol being added under close monitoring for 30 hours. At the time of the
accident, the reactor was being fed for three hours by successive 200- litre loads of alcohol,
with the first injection still incomplete. Monitoring performed by two technicians, one of whom
was a trainee, included an hourly reading of both the temperature and pressure drop; no
anomaly had been observed until that point.
Upon hearing a noise accompanied by a break to the protective disc on the glass column
connected to the reactor and noticing smoke around the disc joints, the technician turned the
feeder control box selector switch to the “off” position. As he closed the alcohol feed valve and
was making his way to the valve used to shut down steam injection, he spotted that leaking on
the column was becoming more persistent. He immediately left the unit, requesting that a co-
worker follow him out — at which point the explosion happened.

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