Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SaChE)

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Safety and Chemical Engineering Education (SaChE)

• Dr. Tom Spicer
• Professor and Head
• Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical
  Engineering
• University of Arkansas

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What we are going to do

• Introductions
• Safety as professional mindset
• What SaChE does to promote safety education
• SaChE products
• Process Safety Beacon
• ChemE Car Safety
• Faculty workshops (next 14-18 Sept 2008, Rohm
  Haas)
• Demonstration of liquid fuel flammability

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Safety as Professional Mindset

• Part time staff person as Safety Officer
• Responsible for all training programs
• Responsible for chemical inventory maintenance
• Responsible for regulatory compliance
• Comprehensive lab safety program undergrad
  program
• Required training on lab safety in undergraduate
  labs
• Required 3 hour course in chemical process safety

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Safety as Professional Mindset

• Comprehensive lab safety program grad programs
• Ongoing safety training programs for graduate
  students to meet regulatory requirements (annual
  calendar, pre-testing used to screen for need for
  training)
• Annual walk through inspections of graduate
  student labs follow up with faculty
• Annual fire extinguisher training for graduate
  students
• Red Cross Basic first aid for all incoming
  graduate students
• Lab safety policies fairly enforced
• Arbitrary (Seinfelds soup nazi) v. relevant
• Over-the-top requirements v. common sense is not
  common
• Inform and educate

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Safety as Professional Mindset

• Relevance
• Bhopal, India
• Graniteville, SC
• BP, Houston
• Dallas, TX

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SaChE Products

• Available with annual membership in SaChE
  (300/yr)
• Group Manager at each school is the primary point
  of contact Group Manager grants login
  capabilities to individual faculty or staff
• Faculty can grant access to some products to
  students as a group (in progress)
• SaChE web site http//www.sache.org/index.asp

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SaChE Problem Sets

• Problem 41
• Would the background be relevant to an
  undergraduate in Thermodynamics?
• Were the instructor comments helpful?
• Would you assign this problem
• as is?
• with some modifications?

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SaChE Problem Sets

• Problem 42
• Were the instructor comments helpful?
• Would you be comfortable assigning this problem
  if you didnt understand where the criteria for
  mixture flash point comes from?
• Would you assign this problem
• as is?
• with some modification?
• for a nonideal solution?

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SaChE Problem Sets

• Problem 48
• Would this problem work well on a process
  simulator? If so, would you modify it?
• Would you assign this problem
• as is?
• with some modification?
• for a nonideal solution?

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Fire in the Hole!Chemical Engineering andOur
Commitment to Safety
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Fire triangle
Ignition source
Fire Self-propagating Exothermal Reaction
Fuel
Oxygen
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Think about this exercise!

• Fire is officially one of the first three
  elements so people have thought about it for a
  long time
• Did you read the assignment for today?
• So, you have a lot experience including some text
  book background
• Do you think you are going to be surprised today?
  All of this underscores the need for lifelong
  learning.

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Flammability demonstration

• In case of an uncontrolled fire
• Anybody worked a fire extinguisher before?
• Class of fire and appropriate extinguisher
• Rule of thumb fire feedback
• Misuse of an extinguisher can spread the fire
• Exit the room and the building in an orderly
  fashion be cool
• Activate the fire alarm on the way out of the
  building

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Fuels
Methanol Ethanol Propanol Hexane Decane
Molecular weight 32 46 60 86 142.3
Combustion energy (kcal/g) 5.4 7.1 8.1 11.6 11.4
LFL () 7.3 4.3 2.1 1.2 0.8
UFL () 36.0 19.0 13.5 7.5 5.4
Vapor pressure (torr) 96. 45. 14.7 121. 0.88
Vapor concentration () 13.0 6.1 2.0 16.5 0.12
Flash point (C) 12.2 12.8 15.0 -23.0 46.1
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Still other things to consider
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Post 9-11 Issues Shipping

33,000,000 gal LNG 10,000 gal LNG
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Further information

• E-mail tos_at_uark.edu
• Web www.cheg.uark.edu