Event
- Event ID
- 293
- Quality
- Description
- An explosion occurred in an industrial cleaner, blowing off and shattering the cover from the top of the machine.
It is believed that the explosion was caused by accidental formation of hydrogen from the rest of previous cleaning (probably from NaOH).
One person injured. - Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Date
- Main component involved?
- Other
- How was it involved?
- Internal Explosion (H2-Air Mixture)
- Initiating cause
- Accidental Hydrogen Formation
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
Facility
- Application
- Other
- Sub-application
- Industrial cleaner
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- Site industrial cleaner.
- Location type
- Unknown
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- The cleaning machine was thought to have been used to remove coolant & swarf from a machine used for aluminium turning. The same machine was then used for removing wash water from another machine which was very slightly contaminated with an alkaline solution (probably the NaOH) It is thought this reacted and caused a build-up of hydrogen gas.
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 1
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Emergency action
- Emergency services and police intervened and evacuated the rest area, was evacuated and remained closed for about eight hours. The truck was decoupled from the trailer. An expert of the hydrogen shipping company arrived on site, and employees of a nearby refinery assisted with hydrogen detecting equipment. Specially trained firemen wearing breathing apparatus attended the scene and performed a controlled release of the hydrogen.
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2 100%
- Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
- Deflagration
- N
- High pressure explosion
- N
- High voltage explosion
- N
References
- Reference & weblink
Event description provided by HSE, original source confidential
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- HSE
