Event
- Event ID
- 640
- Quality
- Description
- Fire of drums containing lithium metal powder: Spontaneous combustion took place at drums containing lithium metal powder which were charged with argon gas for experiments. While lithium metal powder had usually been kept inside films of fluid paraffin to avoid its contact with water, it was stored in drums charged with argon gas for reuse in a tentative way. Water in the air got in to react with lithium because of incomplete sealing of the drums. In addition, the reaction heat built up under hot and humid condition on the day of accident leading to ignition of hydrogen or lithium.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Fire (No additional details provided)
- Macro-region
- Asia
- Country
- Japan
- Date
- Root causes
- Root CAUSE analysis
- The ROOT CAUSE seems a combination of (i) a human error, when Li was stored 'by tentative way' stored differently from the usual procedure, and a lack of inspection/maintenance, due to the fact that that the drum was leaking. Unknown is the role of supervisors/ management.
Facility
- Application
- Steel And Metals Industry
- Sub-application
- lithium production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
- lithium powders,
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location description
- Industrial Area
- Operational condition
- Pre-event occurrences
- An experimental operation was attempted
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of injured persons
- 0
- Number of fatalities
- 0
Event Nature
- Release type
- gas-solid mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2,
lithium - Presumed ignition source
- Not reported
References
- Reference & weblink
Orignal source lost. RISCAD is closed.
JRC assessment
- Sources categories
- RISCAD
