Introduction
A key accomplishment of a reputed chemical plant is to have long duration of accident free operation. Recently, a number of accidents occurred in major r&d establishments, pilot plants as well as in production plants, in spite of the good safety protocols being practiced. Thorough knowledge of the fundamentals of safety technology is essential to avoid such unwanted accidents.
A number of serious accidents have occurred in production facilities which involves handling and processing of chemicals, These accidents causes not only serious injuries of operators it may even cause death. It also results in huge loss of properties and may even lead to major fire accidents of the locality.
Thermal runaway reactions are the primary cause of the accidents. Therefore efficient thermal screening system for chemicals and chemical processing is a prerequisite to for reducing accidents in the chemical plants.
The implementation of effective chemical process safety measures prevents incidents and accidents at pilot or manufacturing scale. Chemical processes have become more numerous, plants more complex, chemistry more ambitious and more toxic, and operating conditions more dangerous over a period time. For these reasons, and owing to the occurrence of serious accidents, regulatory bodies and society at large have become more safety-conscious. These trends have forced companies to improve general chemical process safety and develop concepts that ensure inherently safe chemical processes and manufacturing. An inherently safe design prevents chemical hazards rather than controlling them.
It is very important to understand the process and risk involved to ensure safe and compliant operation. Thorough chemical process safety studies prevent runaway reactions and thereby preventing the damage and destruction of assets; injury or loss of life, and/or environmental degradation or pollution.
The purpose of such studies is to gain an overview of all potential dangers, effects, and consequences. It includes disciplines such as product and process, personal, and environmental safety. Appropriate attention, management, and investigation must be given to each of the above disciplines to ensure the safe manufacturing of chemicals at large scale.
Importance of chemical process safety studies:
Chemical process safety focuses on preventing incidents and accidents during large scale manufacturing of chemicals and pharmaceuticals. It prevents the unintentional release of potentially dangerous materials and energy to the environment during a chemical reaction, or because of a runaway reaction.
Process safety incidents in a chemical plant are mainly due to a) missing information, b) insufficient operator training, c) technical defects, d) human errors and e) combination of unfortunate coincidences Malfunctions, human errors, and lack of full understanding of the chemistry, including all possible side-reactions, of the process and its parameters are among the most frequent reasons for which incidents or accidents take place.
Identifying and understanding hazards and risks, along with thorough risk analysis, enable evaluation of the risk of triggering decompositions and prevent loss of control over the reaction. Chemical process safety is part of a comprehensive safety assessment for scale-up and manufacturing and must therefore be regarded as part of company culture and policy.
Chemical process safety uses a framework of different techniques, technologies, and models and requires an understanding of the desired and potentially undesirable reactions possible during the process. This includes the investigation of thermal events, heat transfer, mixing, mass transfer, and gas evolution, as well as stability of the starting material, the reaction mass, and the resulting products.
OUR TEAM
Dr K.S.Rao: Is a doctorate in Polymer Science from Indian Institute of chemical Technology, Hyderabad. He has over 35 years of exposure in the fields of Product development, Testing, instruments handling, manufacturing, R&D, and training. Had extensive experience in guiding M.Sc, B.Tech and M.Tech students for their projects. He has worked for M/S Asian Paints, Hyderabad in production department for a period of 7 years and engaged in production of resins/polymers used in paint manufacturing.Later worked as a scientist in Hindustan Cables,R & D Center,Hyderabad.He has Good exposure towards R&D,Testing and Production of Polymeric materials. He has vast experience in production, application of various polymers used in defence and other industries.
Dr M.R.P. Reddy: Is a doctorate in Analytical Chemistry with an experience of 35 years in the field of instrumentation, instrumental techniques, Analysis R&D, training as a Senior Scientist in Centre for Materials for Electronics Technology (C-MET), Under Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India. He has a very strong knowledge in the field of metallurgy and metal analysis. He has published innumerable number of papers in the field of analysis, synthesis and instrumentation.
Mrs Gummi Shravani Reddy : At the outset she is Native Indian who follows Indian Culture & Customs. She is Business acumen from a Decade in various business sectors like Petrol Bunks & Real estate. She is qualified Master of Business Administration (MBA) and Electronics & Communications Engineering Graduate. She possessed strong administrative skills in making the works happens by coordinating the Internal and external Human resources. Her strength is Self confidence to execute/ explore the new things to support the sustainable Human life.
CLIENTS
SERVICES
The ARSST is a low thermal inertia calorimeter used to obtain critical upset process design data i.e., Pressure relieving.
The low phi-factor (or thermal inertia) allows the heat and gas generation rates to be measured and directly applied to the process scale, which leads to appropriately designed emergency relief systems (ERS).
For determining the sensitivity of powders to impact stimuli for assessing transport, packaging and regulatory classification.
Some powders are deliberately manufactured with highly energetic behavior, but occasionally it is an unexpected property of a new material. For regulatory compliance there are a number of screening tests which have to be performed on new materials in order that they can be safely transported. One such screening is a BAM Fallhammer test, which measures sensitivity to mechanical force.
Burning behavior test apparatus is used to determine the combustion severity of the material through deposition of the sample as a strip on non-porous plate and ignition trails are performed with the hot (1000°C) platinum wire which acts as an external source of ignition.
It determines if, and to what degree, a fire will propagate in a dust-layer once started by an outside source. The result is either given by a “combustion number” or the rate of propagation of the fire.
The test equipment comprises an electrically heated glowing platinum wire at approx. 1000 °C (diameter: 1 mm, length 86 mm, current 30 A).
DSC is a thermal analysis apparatus measuring how physical properties of a sample change, along with temperature against time. In other words, the device is a thermal analysis instrument that determines the temperature and heat flow associated with material transitions as a function of time and temperature.
Accelerating rate calorimetry (ARC) is a common tool used in thermal stability evaluation of hazardous materials to provide self-heat rate and pressure data that are used to model the kinetics of a reaction and even calculate relief vent sizing.
The main purpose of LOPA study is to identify the countermeasures available against the potential consequences of a particular risk. This study analyse the system, and identify, using a quantitative approach, the mitigation measures against the hazard under study. LOPA is a study developed on the basis of a risk identification analysis (like HAZOP). The countermeasures or ‘protective layers’, must be independent to be effective.
For accurate measurement of the conductivity / resistivity of liquids clothing and other applications.
The liquid conductivity test apparatus is used to assess a liquid‘s conductive properties by measuring the current flowing through the material when a known 10 V is applied across it with reference to ground. A heptane reference sample is used to check the equipment prior to conducting a test on liquid sample with no known conductivity data.
Determines the smallest quantity of energy, as a capacitive or inductive spark discharge, required to ignite a powder dust cloud. Resulting data can be used to assess risks in processing and handling industrial powders.
Measures the lowest temperature at which ignition takes place when a powder product is dispersed in heated air.
The MIT Cloud Apparatus provides an objective way to measure the susceptibility of a dust cloud to auto ignition in a heated environment (e.g. with plant processing temperatures above 110 °C). When most powders are dispersed in heated air, spontaneous combustion will take place provided the air temperature is high enough
The Microtrac S3500 is a industry-preferred Laser Diffraction (LD) analyzer, ideally suited for various particle characterization tasks. It is the first particle size analyzer that uses three precisely placed red laser diodes to accurately characterize particles like never before.The patented Tri-Laser System provides accurate, reliable and repeatable particle size analysis for a diverse range of applications by utilizing the proven theory of Mie compensation for spherical particles and the proprietary principle of Modified Mie calculations for non-spherical particles.
For measurement of conductivity / resistivity of powder samples to enable identification of highly insulating powders which may create electrostatic ignition risks.
Powders will nearly always acquire electrostatic charge during processing, the level of charge being largely determined by the violence of the process.
Powder Testing
Accumulated dust which are generally un-noticed, are major source of explosion in a chemical or pharmaceutical industry. Metal powders such as Titanium, Zirconium, Hafnium and Magnesium are highly pyrophoric even at room temperature. Aluminium, zinc powders are also pyrophoric at elevated temperatures. Surprisingly, even some of the common powders such as sugar powders are also can explode at certain conditions. Drying, milling, conveying, sieving are common unit operations encountered during the handling of powder products. There have been many reported cases of fire and explosion during these unit operations. These accidents can be either due to thermal decomposition, explosion due to static electricity, explosion due to impact or even decomposition during material storage.
An efficient and a systemic way designed to identify and analyse hazards that are related with the processing or handling of highly hazardous materials and to recommend actions to eliminate hazards. PHA is a proactive and structured approach by chemical process operations to understand what can go wrong, how likely it is to go wrong and what steps are necessary to prevent or mitigate undesired consequences.
The goal of performing process hazard analysis is not to label a safe process, but is to detect unsafe situations and to implement the necessary safety improvements to minimise risk
A Safe Process is a Sustainable Process!!
Chemical & pharmaceutical companies have made great strides in technology and state-of- the-art systems and infrastructure.
The equipment and methodologies required to successfully investigate chemical processes for hazards have been available for many years.
Inspite of this, accidents and incidents continue to occur.
So In-order to control these, Our Safety Services support by doing the necessary testing, training and consulting on all aspects of powder handling and processing operations including chemical reactions.
Our practical and thorough approach will provide a comprehensive hazard assessment of your products and processes.
Process Safety Consulting
Kelvn International Safety Services Pvt Ltd consists of trained scientists and engineers who have performed thousands of powder safety testing and conducted numerous process safety assessments. Going beyond mere testing, Kelvn International Safety Services Pvt Ltd intends to implement safety measures at clients workplaces to make it safer. Kelvn International Safety Services Pvt Ltd shall soon be the preferred choice of companies across industries and geographies for their process safety testing and consulting needs.
Kelvn International Safety Services Pvt Ltd offers a wider range of services in Process Safety Consulting and Training. The consulting services include HAZOP, HAZID, Dust Explosion Hazards Analysis (DHA), Fire and Explosion Hazard Assessment, Hazardous Area Classification, (HAC), Process Hazard Analysis (PHA), Process Safety Management (PSM), Process Safety Management Competency Gap Analysis, Incident Investigation and much more.
Kelvn International Safety Services Pvt Ltd is a one stop service for all Process Safety services—Testing, Training and Consulting.
Every chemical manufacturing unit has a process for manufacture, storage, handling, transport of highly hazardous chemicals and KELVN INTERNATIONAL SAFETY SERVICES is committed to the take care of Process Safety Management and Operational Risks Management.
A Process Safety Management (PSM) ensures a structured Safety Management System, for setting and developing a culture of risk-based process safety management that will help in creating advanced risk awareness and develop risk-based people safety.
PSM assessment is one of the most important parts of the Process Safety Management system and it includes
• Identifying the deficiencies
• Planning, following up and documenting the gaps
Process Safety Management
Process Safety Testing DSC (Al crucible) (as such sample) – Melting Point determination
The aim of this PSM audit is to minimize occupational risks and hazards for production floor workers by means of
• Identifying and correcting deficiencies in any Process Safety Management System.
• Effective Emergency Response Creation and Implementation.
• Mechanical Integrity Evaluation and Quality Assurance at a Contractor Level.
• Final Analysis of Process Equipment prior to first time use.
• Hazard Analysis and subsequent Corrective Measures.
The RSD helps chemists and engineers quantify exothermic (and endothermic) reactions from materials of low hazard to high explosives.
The heated calorimeter chamber has a circular pathway to allow air (or inert gas) to circulate repeatedly during the test. The gas passes through the sample chamber and over the main heater. Circulation is achieved by a high temperature fan and a control thermocouple regulates power to the heater to implement the test protocol.
Heat flow calorimetry allows the user to measure heat whilst the process temperature remains under control. While the driving force Tr − Tj is measured with a relatively high resolution, the overall heat transfer coefficient U or the calibration factor UA respectively, is determined by means of calibration before and after the reaction takes place. The calibration factor UA (or the overall heat transfer coefficient U) are affected by the product composition, process temperature, agitation rate, viscosity, and the liquid level.
Location
Address
KELVN International Safety Services Pvt. Ltd.,
Cynosure Enterprises Building, 2nd Floor, Plot No.3, Road No.12, TSIIC Tech Park, IDA Nacharam, Hyderabad-500076, Telangana.
Phone: +91 9440408111.
Email: info@kelvn.in
