Chemical process hazard identification

Abstract The impact of unwanted chemical reactions in the chemical process industry has been investigated. The approach used to answer the basic questions of origin, occurence and importance of unwanted chemical reactions was a study of accident case histories. In total 190 accident case histories were analysed. The most important reasons for unwanted chemical reactions were found to be: impurities, contaminations and stray catalysts (20%), mixing of wrong chemicals (19%), mischarging, incorrect process conditions (19%), and insufficient mixing (13%). A checklist for identifying unwanted chemical reactions is proposed. The checklist comprises 18 tables in all and is structured in four main groups: materials, reaction mixture, unwanted reactions, and standard methods.