Partial leakage of hydrochloric acid due to earthquake

 About 11:35 on December 17th, 1987, a strong earthquake occurred during usual operation of a vinyl chloride monomer plant. The substation was stopped by a malfunction of an over-current relay due to the earthquake during emergency shutdown operation. Although the emergency power generator started, fluctuations of cooling water caused by the earthquake were incorrectly interpreted as a fall of a liquid level. The emergency power generator was stopped immediately by an interlock that mistook an abnormality with cooling water. Following the total power failure, the alkali circulation pump of the absorber stopped, and the gas was discharged.

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Leakage and fire of hydrogen during exchange of a dehydrogenation catalyst at an alkylbenzene manufacturing plant

A catalyst in the dehydrogenation reactor, which usually was operated under hydrogen atmosphere, was changed with separating the reactor and its peripheral part from the slightly pressured part by closing a 20-inch remotely controlled valve. The hydrogen pressure of the peripheral part was set at 20 KPaG, and the reactor was opened to the atmosphere. Considering some hydrogen leakage, suction from piping was done with a vacuum device and, in addition, nitrogen sealing was performed. In piping restoration work after changing the catalyst, flames spouted from the clearance of the flange and two workers got burnt. The cause of the fire was mal management of the method of catalyst changing.

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Fire at an acetylene hydrogenation section on rapid re-startup after an emergency shutdown at an ethylene plant

On July 7th, 1973, an explosion and a fire occurred at an acetylene hydrogenation section of T factory ethylene plant of I petrochemical company. Because of a restart error after an emergency shutdown, there was an error in hydrogen feed control. As excessive hydrogen was injected and it hydrogenated ethylene, the reactor reached a high temperature. In addition, there was an exothermic ethylene decomposition reaction. A large fireball (60 m in diameter, duration time 5 seconds) was produced by an explosion of 1200 kg of ethylene.

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Lessons Learned from Accidents in the Chemical Industry in Japan

 https://www.scirp.org/pdf/OJSST_2014092613341419.pdf

Burst of a phenolic resin reactor due to abnormal reaction

 Raw materials were charged into the reactor that manufactured dihydroxydiphenylmethane by a reaction of phenol with formaldehyde at night on the previous day. By putting in the catalyst in the morning of the day, the contents were heated to the fixed 80 °C, and heating was stopped. However, the temperature continued to rise, so cooling was attempted, but a runaway reaction occurred. As a result, the internal pressure of the reactor increased and the reactor burst. One operator was injured. Although the cause cannot be specified, it is supposed that the temperature was raised too high initially, agitation was started while the temperature was rising, and vapor pressure was increased because cooling water piping was blocked, and so on.

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Lessons learnt from process safety incidents

 https://www.aiche.org/sites/default/files/cep/20150323.pdf

Safety Critical Task Analysis (SCTA)

"Human activities are involved in different aspect of operation of a chemical facility. Starting from design, construction, commissioning, operation, maintenance till decommissioning, human is involved. For safe and reliable operation, high human reliability is required in all phases of lifecycle of the facility. However human errors have contributed to many major industrial accidents in Chemical facilities in the past. Few examples are listed" in this link