Shaik, S. M.; Loh, G.; Sharratt, P. N., Identification of hazards and generating inherently safer process options. In Proceedings of the 26th Institution of Chemical Engineers Symposium on Hazards 2016 (HAZARDS 26), Edinburgh, UK, May 24-26, 2016; IChemE: Rugby, UK, 2016 (Institution of Chemical Engineers Symposium Series 161)
Abstract:
In the drive for better chemical processes, there is a need for close collaboration between engineers and chemists. This type of close, multidisciplinary collaboration improves the overall process development effort by identifying potential downstream issues early. However, safety assessments are usually conducted later in the process development stage once the chemistry and basic process steps have been firmed up, for example, in Hazop 1 studies. The benefits of early stage safety intervention are widely acknowledged since the degrees of freedom available to change things is significantly greater during the early stages of process development. This is especially so if we aim to incorporate inherently safer options in the design. Tools such as reaction maps, driving force tables and process definition diagrams provide an information-rich, common platform for a multidisciplinary team to communicate with each other. These tools are part of the core BRITEST suite of tools and methodologies and they work by building-up process information and understanding in stages. The different tools address different levels of a system under study. For example, reaction or transformation maps (TM) and driving force analysis (DFA) provide an analysis of the chemistry whilst the Process Definition Diagrams (PDD) offers a view at the process level. This innate structure of the BRITEST tools provides opportunities to study safety issues at various levels and introduce inherently safer design options during process development. Using these process understanding tools as a basis for safety assessment help to anchor the identification of hazards and their possible solutions within a scientific framework that takes into consideration factors such as chemical and physical transformations, material properties, physics and manipulated parameters. This is achieved using a newly developed tool called the source-pathway-receptor (SPaR) tool. This tool was designed to accept the inputs (chemistry and process information) from the core process understanding tools (i.e. TM, DFA, PDD) and organise them within the source-pathway-receptor model. This model has been commonly used to demonstrate the link between a hazard source and the ultimate impact on receptor(s). Receptors can be in the form of human exposure, physical structures (including equipment) and environmental receptors. Subsequently, inherent safety strategies could be infused into the SPaR tool to generate options for
improvements.
License type:
PublisherCopyrights
Funding Info:
This work was funded by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore and supported in-kind by BRITEST.