6.

Health Safety & Environment

Saving health, safety, and environment are important for any factory, the importance of those are not less than the importance of the profitability of the factory. So its important to know more about HSE of the intermediate and final products.

6.1 HSE of TPA

Eye contact with TPA may cause slight irritation, with pain or unclear vision. Inhalation may cause irritation of mucosal surfaces. Based on animal studies, high or prolonged oral exposure may lead to kidney changes, presence of blood in the urine or gallstones in bladder. TPA at concentrations equal to or greater than 0.1% is listed by NTP and OSHA as a carcinogen. TPA containers are kept tightly closed and sufficient ventilation must be used to keep employee exposure below recommended exposure limits.

6.2 HSE of PET

Molten polymer will adhere to the skin and can cause severe burns. Eye contact with PET particles may cause irritation with pain or unclear vision. TPA cause no skin irritation or skin sensitization. Decomposition products may lead to skin, eye or respiratory tract irritation. PET in concentrations equal to or greater than 0.1% is not listed by NTP and OSHA as a carcinogen. Using local ventilation to control fumes from hot processing of PET is important. An important environmental advantage of PET is that it can be recycled into new products; this decreases the amount of PET wastes. The recycling process of PET is either mechanical where the original polymer properties are being maintained, or chemical where it is returned to its intermediate or primary compounds and reprocessed.

Fire and Explosion Index

The fire and explosion risk analysis system is a step-by-step objective evaluation of the realistic fire, explosion and reactivity potential of process equipment and its contents. The purpose of the fire and explosion index is to: Quantify the expected damage of the potential fire, explosion and reactivity incidents in realistic terms. Identify equipment that would be likely to contribute to the creation or escalation of an incident. Communicate the fire and explosion index risk potential to the management.

The Dow F&EI system attempts to determine the realistic maximum loss that can occur to a process plant or process unit or related facility. Although the F&EI system is primarily designed for any operation in which flammable, combustible or reactive material is stored, handled or

processed, it may also be used in analyzing the loss potential of sewage treating facilities, distribution systems, pipelines, rectifiers, transformers, boilers, thermal oxidizers and certain elements of power plants. The first step in making the F&EI calculation requires using an efficient and logical procedure to determine which process units should be studied. A process unit is defined as any major item of process equipment. It is quite clear that the manufacturing unit of PET has many process units. To calculate the F&EI, however, only one process unit could have an impact from a loss prevention standpoint should be evaluated. There are no hard and fast rules governing the choice of process units for evaluation. Usually, the F&EI is calculated for the unit with directly fired heating and for unit with highest pressure (first esterification reactor), as these are considered to be the units contributing most to the risk of fire and explosion. For calculating the F&EI, three major subsections should be defined and calculated which can be summarized as follows: Material Factor (MF) The material factor is the basic starting value in the calculations of the F&EI. The material factor is a measure of the intrinsic rate of potential energy release from fire or explosion produced by combustion or chemical reaction. As it is known that if the temperature of the material on which the material factor is based is over 60oC, a certain adjustment may be required. For EG which has a MF of 4 and a flashing point of 111.1oC, no adjustment is required because the material is above its flash point at ambient temperature [Dow Index]. EG is considered since the main hazard is from unreacted material in the first esterification reactor. Process Unit Hazards Factor After the appropriate Material Factor has been determined, the next step is to calculate the Process Unit Hazards Factor, which is the term that is multiplied by the Material Factor to obtain the F&EI. The numerical value of the Process Unit Hazards Factor is determined by first determining the General Process Hazards Factor and Special Process Hazards Factor listed on the F&EI form. The General Process Hazard (F1) includes some items to be studied; these items can be summarized as follows: 1. Exothermic chemical reactions This penalty is taken into account if the process unit under study is a reactor in which a chemical reaction takes place. Since esterification reactions are classified as moderate exotherms, they require a penalty of 0.5.

2. Endothermic processes This penalty is taken for any endothermic process-taking place in a reactor. Since the reaction that we deal with is esterification reaction (moderate exotherm) there is no penalty for this point. 3. Material handling and transfer This item is evaluated with regard to the potential fir fire involving the pertinent process unit during the handling, transfer and warehousing of materials. Since there is no storage or loading operations, the penalty is 0.0. 4. Enclosed or indoor process units An enclosed area is identified as any roofed area with three or more sides or an area enclosed by a roofless structure with walls on all sides. Since it is outdoor operation, the penalty is 0.0. 5. Access Emergency equipment must have ready access to the area housing the pertinent process unit. Access from at least two sides is considered the minimum requirement. An access can be ensured during the design, so the penalty is 0.0. 6. Drainage and spill control This includes the penalties for design conditions that could cause large spills of flammable or combustible liquids to be retained around or near process equipment. The penalty factor is taken to be the minimum value, which is 0.25. This gives a general process hazards factor F1 = 1.75 The special process hazards are factors that contribute primarily to the probability of a loss incident. They consist of specific process conditions that have themselves to be major cause of fire and explosion incidents. They are twelve items listed and discussed as follows: