Thermal hazard accident investigation of hydrogen peroxide mixing with propanone employing calorimetric approaches

Abstract

Hydrogen peroxide (H 2O 2), historically, due to its broad applications in the chemical industries, has caused many serious fires and explosions around the world. Its thermal hazards may also be incurred by an incompatible reaction with other chemicals, and a runaway reaction may be induced in the last stage. This study applied thermal analytical methods to explore the H 2O 2 leading to these accidents by incompatibility and to discuss what might be formed by the upset situations. Thermal hazard analysis contained a solvent, propanone (CH 3COCH 3, so-called acetone), which was deliberately selected to mix with H 2O 2 for investigating the degree of thermal hazard. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and vent sizing package 2 (VSP2) were employed to evaluate the thermal hazard of H 2O 2. The results indicated that H 2O 2 is highly hazardous while mixed with propanone, as a potential contaminant. The time to maximum rate (TMR) was used as emergency response time in the chemical industries. Therefore, TMR of H 2O 2 was calculated to be 70 min for runaway reaction (after T 0) and TMR of H 2O 2/propanone was discovered to be 27 min only. Fire and explosion hazards could be successfully lessened if the safety-related data are properly imbedded into manufacturing processes.