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Clean Hydrogen Partnership

Explosion at a silicon coating plant

Event

Event ID
530
Quality
Description
An explosion and fire occurred at a chemical plant applying silicone coatings. The blast occurred when some polymethyl hydrogen siloxane was accidentally fed into a reactor, together with the correct feedstock, allyl glycidyl ether.
The two epoxides reacted, overheated and hydrogen burst out of a ruptured pipe into the building, where it mixed with air and exploded.

The 5 workers were caught in the resulting fire. According to the Company, the police believe that human error is to blame. Although both chemicals were labelled, they were stored in drums of the same colour.
Event Initiating system
Classification of the physical effects
Hydrogen Release and Ignition
Nature of the consequences
Macro-region
Europe
Country
Germany
Date
Main component involved?
Reactor / Oven / Furnace / Test Chamber
How was it involved?
Internal Explosion (Hp Explosion)
Initiating cause
Run-Away Reaction
Root causes
Root CAUSE analysis
INITIATING cause is the erroneous mixing of a wrong substance (polymethyl hydrogen siloxane) with the correct one (allyl glycidyl ether) in a reactor, causing overheating and hydrogen production.
The accidental event occurred in two step: first the rupture of thereactor due to (probably) to overpressurisation from the runaway reaction, secondly the the release, mixing, ignition and explosion of hydrogen in teh building.
This could occur because of inadequate chemicals identification so that chemicals were added incorrectly. The ROOT CAUSE could be assigned to shortcoming in procedurea and in management failure in identifying worst case scenarios.

Facility

Application
Chemical Industry
Sub-application
paints production
Hydrogen supply chain stage
Location type
Confined
Operational condition
Description of the facility/unit/process/substances
DESCRIPTION OF THE CHEMICALS INVOLVED
Allyl glycidyl ether is an organic compound used in adhesives and sealants and as a monomer for polymerization reactions. It is formally the condensation product of allyl alcohol and glycidol via an ether linkage. Because it contains both an alkene and an epoxide group, either group can be reacted selectively to yield a product where the other functional group remains intact for future reactions.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allyl_glycidyl_ether#:~:text=Allyl%20glycidyl%20ether%20is%20an,remains%20intact%20for%20future%20reactions.]

Polymethylhydrosiloxane (PMHS) is a sylicon-based polymer characterised by its Si-H bonds. its general structure is [−CH3(H)Si−O−]. It is used in organic chemistry as a mild and stable reducing agent easily transferring hydrides to metal centers and a number of other reducible functional groups.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymethylhydrosiloxane]

Emergency & Consequences

Number of injured persons
5
Number of fatalities
1
Property loss (onsite)
6700000
Post-event summary
Explosion, rupture, damage to equipment and fatality.
Reactors and reaction equipment, pipe and drums. Damage estimated DM 10M $6.7M (1995).

Event Nature

Release type
gas
Involved substances (% vol)
H2 100%
Presumed ignition source
Run-away reaction
High pressure explosion
Y

References

Reference & weblink

ARIA event 7840<br />
https://www.aria.developpement-durable.gouv.fr/accident/7840/<br />
(accesssed December 2025)

ICHEME/MHIDAS event 8527<br />
The ICHEME database is no longer available, but data can be download as PDF for free. <br />
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge-networks/knowledge-resources/safety-ce… />
(accessed October 2025)

TAZ news of 17/02/1995<br />
https://taz.de/Explosion-in-Essen/!1520170/<br />
(Accessed December 2025)

JRC assessment