Recent incidents in Indian Industry creating turmoil

Yesterday's fire and explosion incident in Yashashvi Rasayan has made me ponder upon the prevention and protection measures taken by the manufacturing plants.

The incident has been said to be in the tank farm area. As per the initial reports, the fire in the tank farm has lead to an explosion of solvent storage tank/ tanks. In multiple images, damaged tanks, hydrogen trolley and multiple other plant units could be seen in the near vicinity of the tank. The other images of the incident are quite disturbing with charred bodies lying on the ground. There is a disturbing video of a charred man asking for help outside the plant that is being circulated in social media. The root cause of the incident still needs to be confirmed by the authorities. 

This incident combined with Vizag Styrene release and Tarapur surfactant factory explosion has put multiple questions in my mind. 

• Do you think that the understanding of Indian industry to process safety has improved? Do you think enough measures are taken in a plant to prevent unsafe acts and unsafe conditions? 

• Do you think that management of your plant or the neighbouring plant is seriously implementing measures and filling gaps identified in audits and PHA studies? 

• Do you think that government authorities are seriously making proactive reviews of the sites? 

• Do you think our laws and regulations related to industries are stringent enough to make the industries realise that they have more to lose in an accident than to gain in the normal operation of the plant? 

In my opinion, some industries have a better understanding of the importance of process safety in their plant and they implement preventive and protective measures as well. But several of them lack resources and knowledge related to process safety and how to prevent unsafe conditions and acts in their plants. They are still limited to hard hat and steel toe shoes safety which is important, but there is so much more to safety.

Many do not understand the importance of a good PHA study and how it can help in preventing and safeguarding against incidents. For example, I have worked with companies representatives who have asked me "why are you taking a scenario of external fire in a tank farm as I have enough fire monitors and hydrant points available in plant to fight such a scenario?" or "Why are you recommending a dump tank for a PSV release as I have high-pressure alarm and interlocks for my vessel?"

Although we have many existing guidelines, laws and regulations. Also, frequent inspections keep on going on in our plants. But it is high time to bend our perspective towards Process Safety along with general safety. It is high time that we understand and focus on topics like chemical reaction and thermal runaway hazards, facility siting, the importance of Management of Change and quality PHAs, risk of Dust Explosion, risk of fire/ explosion due to electrostatic discharges, the importance of QRA (Quantitative Risk Assessment) and LOPA (Layer of Protection Analysis) studies for the major accident hazard scenarios, the importance of Process Safety Management (PSM), etc.

These incidents leave us and our families devastated and in turmoil. We need to learn from these incidents and improve our facilities. At the end of the day, we all should return to our families safe and sound.

Operator Earthing - Are you doing it correctly?

Thank you guys for such an awesome response to my last blog post on Partial Inerting. It was made clear from the responses, that it is rather an unexplored topic in many parts of the world. Keep sharing your thoughts and keep sharing the blog with your colleagues, friends and students.

For today's blog post, I am picking up a basic concept of OPERATOR GROUNDING and what is the correct way to actually do it. There are many industries who provide Safety Shoes (maybe antistatic/ static dissipative) to their employees working on the shop floor, however, a substantial misconception regarding grounding practices exist in the industries that "If I have provided my operator dissipative shoes he has been grounded adequately." Also, there are many who purchase shoes with higher resistance to the ground then what is recommended by the standards.

Selection of Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (FIBC) and their relevance

Hey everybody! A big shout out to all the people who have helped me reach more than 1k viewers on the blog. Keep sharing with your friends, colleagues and to all others for whom you feel that this content will be relevant to.

The next concept which I have seen people struggling with is the selection of FIBC.

FIBCs are flexible, rectilinear containers constructed of woven plastic with a suitable liner. The typical FIBC is made of woven polypropylene with a polyolefin liner. Various designs exist for the basic container and grounding arrangements (if any), and larger capacities are also available.

There are four types of FIBCs which are available, i.e. Type A, Type B, Type C and Type D. Each of these have different specifications and different utilization & relevance.

Can Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) from Non-Conductive Bags act as an Ignition Source?

Hope you are enjoying the posts and able to gain some insights from the blog.

Now for this week blog, I am touching on a more sensitive question, which people have asked me in almost all Electrostatic Hazard Seminars. "Can Non-Conductive Bag act as an ignition source?"

A non-conductive bag, being an insulator can act as a source of Brush Discharge which has approximate energy of up to 3-4 mJ associated with it. Depending on the type of flammable atmosphere, brush discharge from the non-conductive bag may/ may not act as an ignition source.

Based on the equivalent energy of brush discharges, it must be assumed that most potentially explosive gas/air mixtures, solvent vapor/air mixtures and hybrid mixtures (vapor/gas and dust with air) can be ignited by brush discharges.

Are there two types of Minimum Ignition Energy (MIE) for powders?

Here we go. The first blog; let’s begin the blogging and sharing together.

Yes, there are two types of MIE, where one type is carried out without inductance and the other is carried out with inductance.

Minimum Ignition Energy is the minimum energy that is required for ignition of fuel. In other words, the minimum energy an ignition source must provide to the fire triangle for the fuel to burn in presence of an oxidant.
The test to establish MIE is carried out in an apparatus called MIKE3 (refer image below). It is performed using ASTM E2019, “Standard Test Method for Minimum Ignition Energy of a Dust Cloud in Air” or EN13821 “Potentially explosive atmospheres — Explosion prevention and protection — Determination of minimum ignition energy of dust/air mixtures”

MIE (Without inductance) corresponds to the energy required by electrostatic discharge to ignite a dispersed cloud. The circuit of MIKE3 for this test is purely capacitative and the spark energy can be related straight to 1/2*C*V^2 based on the capacitance selected.

MIE (With inductance) simulates the longer duration discharges from electronic circuitry that can occur from machines or control equipment (essentially a spark from short in a wire or electronic equipment) or mechanical sparks, by adding an inductance in the existing circuit.

Now one thing to remember is that MIE (With Inductance) is more conservative as compared to MIE (Without inductance). 

Next question that comes is which one to choose?

And we are Live!!!!

Do you feel trouble understanding Process Safety Concepts? Do you feel that there is no place where someone in Process Safety business is not giving you any information for free? Have you ever felt sitting in a process safety seminar that why the author is not explaining the basic, before going into the detailed concept? Well if that's the case, this is the perfect portal for us to discuss. No one is judging you here for your lack of knowledge or for asking what you considered as a "DUMB" question or a basic concept.

I am a Chemical Engineer by qualification and Process Safety & Risk Consultant by profession catering to various sectors primarily Pharmaceuticals, FMCG, Metal, Chemicals, Plastic & Polymer, Wood & Paper and Oil & Gas. I do perform training, seminars, and webinars with the help of my present employer on different process safety aspects such as Electrostatic Hazards and controls, Dust Explosion protection and prevention, Hazardous Area Classification, Quantitative Risk Assessment, SIL & LOPA, HAZOP, Process Safety Testing for Powders, etc.

I have started this blog to share some of the insights of Process Safety and also to provide solutions to various general queries that we receive on day to day basis. Will also like to share my personal experiences while working on site and some views related to incidents happening around the globe.

Would love, if all the avid readers can share their thoughts and their queries related to process safety here or on my email; so I can continue to upkeep the content on this blog.