Explosion evaluation and safety storage analyses of cumene hydroperoxide using various calorimeters

Abstract

Plenty of thermal explosions and runaway reactions of cumene hydroperoxide (CHP) were described from 1981 to 2010 in Taiwan. Therefore, a thermal explosion accident of CHP in oxidation tower in 2010 in Taiwan was investigated because of piping breakage. In general, high concentration of CHP for thermal analysis using the calorimeter is dangerous. Therefore, a simulation method and a kinetic parameter were used to simulate thermal hazard of high concentrations of CHP only by the researcher. This study was applied to evaluate thermal hazard and to analyze storage parameters of 80 and 88 mass% CHP using three calorimeters for the oxidation tower, transportation, and 50-gallon drum. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) (a non-isothermal calorimeter), thermal activity monitor III (TAM III) (an isothermal calorimeter), and vent sizing package 2 (VSP2) (an adiabatic calorimeter) were employed to detect the exothermic behavior and runaway reaction model of 80 and 88 mass% CHP. Exothermic onset temperature (T0), heat of decomposition (ΔHd), maximum temperature (Tmax), time to maximum rate under isothermal condition (TMRiso) (as an emergency response time), maximum pressure (Pmax), maximum of self-heating rate ((dT/dt)max), maximum of pressure rise rate ((dP/dt)max), half-life time (t1/2), reaction order (n), activation energy (Ea), frequency factor (A), etc., of 80 and 88 mass% CHP were applied to prevent thermal explosion and runaway reaction accident and to calculate the critical temperature (Tc). Experimental results displayed that the n of 80 and 88 mass% CHP was determined to be 0.5 and the Ea of 80 and 88 mass% CHP were evaluated to be 132 and 134 kJ mol−1, respectively.