In organic chemistry, isocyanate is the functional group with the formula R−N=C=O. Organic compounds that contain an isocyanate group are referred to as isocyanates. An organic compound with two isocyanate groups is known as a diisocyanate. Diisocyanates are manufactured for the production of polyurethanes, a class of polymers.
Methyl isocyanate (MIC) is an organic compound with the molecular formula CH3NCO. Synonyms are isocyanatomethane and methyl carbylamine. Methyl isocyanate is an intermediate chemical in the production of carbamate pesticides (such as carbaryl, carbofuran, methomyl, and aldicarb). It has also been used in the production of rubbers and adhesives. As an extremely toxic and irritating compound, it is very hazardous to human health. It was the principal toxicant involved in the infamous Bhopal gas disaster, which officially killed around 20,000 people in total. It is also a very potent lachrymatory agent.
The Bhopal disaster or Bhopal gas tragedy was a chemical accident on the night of 2–3 December 1984 at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. Considered the world's worst industrial disaster, over 500,000 people in the small towns around the plant were exposed to the highly toxic gas methyl isocyanate (MIC). Estimates vary on the death toll, with the official number of immediate deaths being 2,259. In 2008, the Government of Madhya Pradesh paid compensation to the family members of 3,787 victims killed in the gas release, and to 574,366 injured victims. A government affidavit in 2006 stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries. Others estimate that 8,000 died within two weeks, and another 8,000 or more have since died from gas-related diseases.
An environmental disaster or ecological disaster is defined as a catastrophic event regarding the natural environment that is due to human activity. This point distinguishes environmental disasters from other disturbances such as natural disasters and intentional acts of war such as nuclear bombings.
Carbaryl is a chemical in the carbamate family used chiefly as an insecticide. It is a white crystalline solid previously sold under the brand name Sevin, which was a trademark of the Bayer Company. The Sevin trademark has since been acquired by GardenTech, which has eliminated carbaryl from most Sevin formulations. Union Carbide discovered carbaryl and introduced it commercially in 1958. Bayer purchased Aventis CropScience in 2002, a company that included Union Carbide pesticide operations. Carbaryl was the third-most-used insecticide in the United States for home gardens, commercial agriculture, and forestry and rangeland protection. As a veterinary drug, it is known as carbaril (INN).
The Flixborough disaster was an explosion at a chemical plant close to the village of Flixborough, North Lincolnshire, England, on 1 June 1974. It killed 28 and seriously injured 36 of the 72 people on site at the time. The casualty figures could have been much higher if the explosion had occurred on a weekday, when the main office area would have been occupied. A contemporary campaigner on process safety wrote "the shock waves rattled the confidence of every chemical engineer in the country".
A boiling liquid expanding vapor explosion is an explosion caused by the rupture of a vessel containing a pressurized liquid that has reached a temperature above its boiling point. Because the boiling point of a liquid rises with pressure, the contents of the pressurized vessel can remain a liquid as long as the vessel is intact. If the vessel's integrity is compromised, the loss of pressure drops the boiling point, which can cause the liquid to convert to a gas expanding rapidly. If the gas is combustible, as in the case with hydrocarbons and alcohols, further damage can be caused by the ensuing fire.
Process Safety Managementof Highly Hazardous Chemicals is a regulation promulgated by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). It defines and regulates a process safety management (PSM) program for plants using, storing, manufacturing, handling or carrying out on-site movement of hazardous materials above defined amount thresholds. Companies affected by the regulation usually build a compliant process safety management system and integrate it in their safety management system. Non-U.S. companies frequently choose on a voluntary basis to use the OSHA scheme in their business.
The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 is a United States federal law passed by the 99th United States Congress located at Title 42, Chapter 116 of the U.S. Code, concerned with emergency response preparedness.
The Texas City Refinery explosion occurred on March 23, 2005, when a vapor cloud of natural gas and petroleum ignited and violently exploded at the isomerization (ISOM) process unit at the BP Texas City refinery in Texas City, Texas, killing 15 workers, injuring 180 others and severely damaging the refinery. The Texas City Refinery was the second-largest oil refinery in the state, and the third-largest in the United States with an input capacity of 437,000 barrels (69,500 m3) per day as of January 1, 2000. BP acquired the Texas City refinery as part of its merger with Amoco in 1999.
In the chemical and process industries, a process has inherent safety if it has a low level of danger even if things go wrong. Inherent safety contrasts with other processes where a high degree of hazard is controlled by protective systems. As perfect safety cannot be achieved, common practice is to talk about inherently safer design. “An inherently safer design is one that avoids hazards instead of controlling them, particularly by reducing the amount of hazardous material and the number of hazardous operations in the plant.”
The Formosa Plastics propylene explosion was a propylene release and explosion that occurred on October 6, 2005, in the Olefins II Unit at the Formosa Plastics plant in Point Comfort, Texas, United States. The subsequent fire burned for five days.
The International Medical Commission on Bhopal (IMCB) was established in 1993 to organise medical responses to the 1984 Bhopal disaster (India).
Process safety is an interdisciplinary engineering domain focusing on the study, prevention, and management of large-scale fires, explosions and chemical accidents in process plants or other facilities dealing with hazardous materials, such as refineries and oil and gas production installations. Thus, process safety is generally concerned with the prevention of, control of, mitigation of and recovery from unintentional hazardous materials releases that can have a serious effect to people, plant and/or the environment.
The San Juanico disaster involved a series of fires and explosions at a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank farm in the settlement of San Juan Ixhuatepec, municipality of Tlalnepantla de Baz, State of Mexico, Mexico on 19 November 1984. The facility and the settlement, part of Greater Mexico City, were devastated, with 500–600 victims killed, and 5000–7000 suffering severe burns. It is one of the deadliest industrial disasters in world history, and the deadliest industrial accident involving fires and/or explosions from hazardous materials in a process or storage plant since the Oppau explosion in 1921.
Hydrogen safety covers the safe production, handling and use of hydrogen, particularly hydrogen gas fuel and liquid hydrogen.
Chemical safety includes all those policies, procedures and practices designed to minimize the risk of exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals. This includes the risks of exposure to persons handling the chemicals, to the surrounding environment, and to the communities and ecosystems within that environment. Manufactured chemicals, either pure or in mixtures, solutions and emulsions, are ubiquitous in modern society, at industrial, occupational and private scale. However, there are chemicals that should not mix or get in contact with others, as they can produce byproducts that may be toxic, carcinogenic, explosive etc., or can be dangerous in themselves. To avoid disasters and mishaps, maintaining safety is paramount.
A domino effect accident is an accident in which a primary undesired event sequentially or simultaneously triggers one or more secondary undesired events in nearby equipment or facilities, leading to secondary accidents more severe than the primary event. Thus, a domino effect accident is actually a chain of multiple events, which can be likened to a falling row of dominoes. The term knock-on accident is also used.
On April 26, 2018, an explosion and subsequent fire occurred at the Husky Energy Oil Refinery in Superior, Wisconsin. An initial explosion was reported at 10:00 AM and was extinguished close to noon, however a piece of debris had hit a storage tank containing asphalt, which ignited after spilling across the refinery, sending a thick plume of black smoke into the air. Thirty-six people, including 11 refinery employees, were sent to local hospitals, but there were ultimately no fatalities. Residents 3 miles to the east and west of the refinery, 2 miles to the north, and 10 miles to the south were evacuated from their homes temporarily due to concerns of both the toxicity of the smoke affecting those who lived south of the refinery and concerns regarding the plant's hydrofluoric acid tank causing further damage.
