Benazzoli A. Inertization’s Project of reactors processing flammable volatile organic liquids

University of Padova, 2015. — 147 p.
Safety risk at the workplace is an issue which employers and engineers must take the responsibility. Hence they must do their utmost to analyze and manage such risks, possibly preventing them. In light of the importance of such aspects, I wanted to investigate the aspects related to the risk of fire and explosion in industrial activities. To face a real case, I’ve done my thesis work at a facility of the company Huber Italy, in Vicenza, where I spent 7 months. Because of the massive use of organic solvents in the production cycle, the risks of fire and explosion can not be excluded. Indeed they may represent a real risk, so my thesis is mainly focused on the issue of safety in the workplace in order to possibly improve the current situation. To deal with the current problem of fire risk, I analyzed different alternative preventive measures which are suited to the current situation. This led me to identify three different scenarios. The thesis work has been focused on the comparison of the three different operational scenarios, including the one currently used by the company. To analyze the risk profile, I used the software CPWin by BMSistemi to calculate the fire risk in order to numerically quantify the residual risk to which the spans of the plant of the company are currently subjected. I performed the same procedure for the remaining scenarios demonstrating then, numerically, which is most advantageous to reduce the fire risk. The method of analysis used in this thesis has allowed to classify the different scenarios and identify the most appropriate to prevent the risk of fire or explosion in the company. In order to achieve an economical evaluation of the three scenarios I’ve evaluated the consumption of electricity, natural gas, and the maintenance costs, and the cost for the revamping of the existing plant. I considered also the environmental aspects related to the emissions to the atmosphere from the thermal oxidizer, as well as the large consumption of electricity and natural gas resulting from the operation of the post-combustor. These three criteria - safety, economics and environment - used in my analysis are the most significant and decisive as they represent, respectively, the priority aspects of company’s development.