Event
- Event ID
- 95
- Quality
- Description
- The incident occurred in the hydrogenation reactor and products cooling unit. The reactor operated under vacuum conditions and the cooling medium was water.
Toxic, flammable and explosive substances (flammable gases, hydrogen sulphide and hydrogen) escaped to the open air from a bend in the water cooler. The heat-exchanger of the cooling unit was corroded by the action of the hydrogen sulphide contained in the reaction products.
The hydrogen sulphide emission caused bad odour in the surroundings of the plant area. The population was alerted. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Unignited Hydrogen Release
- Nature of the consequences
- Leak No Ignition (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- Unknown
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Heat Exchanger (Pipe)
- How was it involved?
- Rupture & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Material Degradation (Internal Corrosion / Erosion)
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING cause was the corrosion of the material by hydrogen sulphide.
Facility
- Application
- Petrochemical Industry
- Sub-application
- hydrogenation reactor
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- hydrogen pipe, heat exchanger, water cooling unit, hydrogenation reactor,
- Location type
- Open
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Post-event summary
- Released amount of flammable gases = 145 kg
Released amount of hydrogen sulphide = 55 kg
Released amount of hydrogen = 100 kg
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2
H2S
hydrocarbons - Released amount
- 100
- Presumed ignition source
- No ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Description of the event in the European Database eMARS
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- eMARS
