The reactor is one of the equipment commonly used in fine chemical industry, such as chemical industry, medicine industry, dye industry, etc. , if handled improperly or not in time, it is easy to cause an explosion accident. Such events often occur in news reports. So, we need to figure out why the cauldron exploded so easily? What precautions can we take? Below by small braided lead you to understand the six common reasons for reactor explosion, as well as the corresponding solutions.
Explosion Reason One: the material is too fast
A reactor is a relatively sealed vessel in which materials are put into the reactor for chemical reaction. If the feeding speed is too fast, the ratio of materials is wrong or the order of feeding materials is wrong, rapid exothermic reactions (common chemical reactions) may occur, and if cooling measures are not synchronized, the thermal decomposition of the material will result in a widespread accumulation of heat, resulting in an explosion.
Treatment measures: regular inspection of equipment, analysis of material cross-flow on the reactor may have an impact, and implement reasonable measures. Strengthen the management of hazardous chemicals in and out of storage, signs and marks, and strengthen the basic skills training of operators.
Explosion reason two: material reason
Most of the materials in the reactor belong to dangerous chemicals, in addition to a lot of low flash point class A flammable liquid through liquid pump or vacuum way from the pipe into the reactor, easy to build up static electricity, once these materials leak, will form an explosive mixture with the air, encounter static electricity will be prone to explosion. Leakage of toxic materials can also cause staff poisoning.
Treatment: it is forbidden to use vacuum or air to send material, it is forbidden to use machine pump and metal (or with electrostatic conduction measures) pipeline to transport flammable liquid, if there is flammable liquid in the reactor to set nitrogen seal.
Cause of explosion: reaction out of control
Chlorination, nitrification, oxidation and other strong exothermic chemical reactions, if the reaction once out of control, the reactor temperature increases rapidly, pressure increases, will lead to vessel rupture. After the reactor rupture, the material will be ejected from the reactor, unstable hot liquid will cause 2 explosions, or even 3 explosions.
Treatment measures: strictly abide by the operating procedures, through the control of temperature and feeding speed to control the reaction rate of materials in the reactor. Strengthen the inspection of engineering measures, such as alarm, interlock, SIS system is intact re-use, to ensure the production process of public works (water, electricity, gas, steam) stable operation.
Cause of explosion four: mechanical impurities
Reactor needs regular maintenance, maintenance process is the most likely to fall into the clean-up of mechanical impurities, these impurities in the reactor operation, resulting in local friction heating reactor decomposition explosion.
Treatment measures: attention to maintenance do not fall into the mechanical impurities, improve the quality of maintenance. After cleaning, to keep the surrounding clean, to ensure that the reactor is not cleaned residue, otherwise it will affect the use of equipment, can not start operation, affect the reactor work schedule. It is necessary to collect the information of hazardous characteristics of chemicals regularly, determine the use according to their characteristics, strengthen the monitoring of process parameters, and formulate emergency measures for abnormal working conditions.
Cause of explosion: equipment defect
Equipment integrity is the material basis of enterprise safety production. The unreasonable design of the reactor equipment, the continuous shape of the structure, the improper welding seam (the welding quality can not meet the requirements) , and so on, make the equipment material toughness reduce, and the shell is easy to be corroded by the corrosive medium, bring the risk of explosion in the process of operation.
Treatment measures: regular inspection, do a good job of equipment safety production cycle management, especially high-temperature and high-pressure equipment on-site inspection, through the change of process parameters to predict the use of equipment, if found broken, must be replaced in a timely manner, it is difficult to imagine the consequences of operating the machine without knowledge. In addition, emergency measures should be taken to deal with abnormal working conditions.
Cause of explosion six: increased oxygen content
The common three elements of explosion are open flame, combustible and oxygen. The blade of the reactor is easy to rub and spark in the process of high-speed rotation, which is hard to avoid. The reaction feed is mostly combustible, in the open fire and combustibles can not be controlled, only the control of oxygen content in the reactor. An increase in oxygen content in an industrial system can lead to an explosion of the reactor, usually no more than 1 ppm. Normally, many factories feed nitrogen into the reactor (nitrogen is cheaper) and squeeze the oxygen out, which controls the amount of oxygen in the reactor, to prevent the reactor because of high oxygen content and explosion.
Treatment: strictly control the oxygen content in the process system. The oxygen content in the reactor can be monitored in real time by the oxygen content analyzer. The alarm values are usually set at 5% vol and 8% vol. Once the alarm value is reached, the nitrogen charging switch will be turned on immediately to automatically fill nitrogen and reduce oxygen.