Event
- Event ID
- 599
- Quality
- Description
- An explosion and fire occurred on a reformer at a fertiliser plant. Source of ignition was auto ignition or electric motor.
- 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?
- Reactor / Oven / Furnace / Test Chamber
- How was it involved?
- Leak & Formation Of A Flammable H2-Hc-Air Mixture
- Initiating cause
- Unknown
- Root causes
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The INITIATING CAUSE is unknown.
The ROOT CAUSE was classified by ICHEME as "Operator error", without providing however any detail. Therefore, considering also the very human temptation to identify any incident as human error, this case in HIAD should be given as 'cause unknown'.
Facility
- Application
- Chemical Industry
- Sub-application
- Fertilisers production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- reformer
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Unknown (No additional details provided)
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas mixture (syngas)
- Involved substances (% vol)
- syngas
- Presumed ignition source
- Auto-ignition
References
- Reference & weblink
Event description extracted from the UK database ICHEME in PDF<br />
<br />
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/… />
(accessed October 2020)<br />
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- ICHEME
