Lessons Learned from a Thermal Runaway Incident Involving an Organic Peroxide Intermediate during a Power Outage

摘要

A small specialty chemicals plant experienced an unusual power outage as the result of anearby lightning strike. The lightning strike damaged several of the electrical distributionsystems, local controls, and instrumentation systems in such a way that the extent of thedamages to control systems was not apparent. During the ensuing period of less than 10hours, the facility personnel attempted to identify and repair the damaged systems tobring the plant back online. Unbeknownst to the operating personnel due to the damagedcontrols and instruments, a large oxidizing reactor vessel, which was in use at the time ofthe outage, contained a sufficient enough quantity of hot organic peroxide intermediatethat it had started to undergo self-sustained thermal decomposition. Without the ability tocool the material in the reactor vessel, the organic peroxide underwent thermal runawayleading to uncontrolled venting of hot reaction byproducts that were ignited leading to aninitial flash fire followed by a large pool fire in the operating unit. Personnel wereinjured and significant facility damages were caused. This paper will describe theaccident investigation, provide comparisons to other recent thermal runaway incidents,like the T2 accident, and discuss lessons learned from thermal runaway accidents.