The objective of this volume is to provide, under one cover, guidance in
performing many basic operations encountered in chemical facilities in a safe and professional manner. The book endeavors to achieve the following: Provide a comprehensive reference for certain fundamental operations. Provide guidance in applying appropriate practices to prevent acci- dents. Indicate unsafe and inadequate practices that should be avoided. The audience visualized in the preparation of this book is the personnel of an independent chemical operation located in the United States that may lack a full complement of specialists. Such plants may tend to be below median size and to emphasize batch processing. The equipment selected for specific discussion reflects this orientation.
1.2. SCOPE
The book selectively discusses operations not extensively covered in readily
available publications. These operations are usually covered by proprietary safety standards and operating procedures which are not generally accessible to the public. The book cannot possibly include every conceivable safety fundamental and therefore focuses on the more obvious and more frequently occurring operations. The book emphasizes general principles and the fundamentals of organ- izing a safety program. From the vast literature on this subject, we have chosen to emphasize the material most widely used and most readily available to an operation without complete library facilities. Accordingly, there are many references to recognized standards and published US government regula- tions. The reader is assumed to have a general familiarity with these sources, but one section of the book lists relevant agencies and societies along with their addresses. Many of the primary references are to material published in the Federal Register (FR) or the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). Typically, these are referred to by their location in the CFR in the abbreviated form (title number)-"CFR"-(section number), for example, 29CFR1910.
1.3. ORGANIZATION
Chapter 2, Materials/Chemicals Handling, discusses handling of chemical
substances and materials. Safe handling requires knowledge of the material's hazardous properties and conditions created during storage, transport, and processing, and one section covers general material hazards. Liquids, solids, gases, and waste materials then are covered separately. Chapter 3, Process Equipment and Procedures, covers safety considera- tions in the design, installation, operation, and maintenance of selected proc- ess equipment and auxiliary systems. Design considerations are those which pertain to the various types of equipment covered in the chapter. Safety in design should begin at the earliest stages by considering a facility as a whole and striving for inherent safety [I]. Chapter 4, General Topics, deals with safety topics not directly related to specific operations. Principal subjects include the inspection and maintenance of equipment, spare parts handling, storage and warehousing, plant modifi- cations, hazardous work, and worker protection. Chapter 5, Cleanup and Process Changeover, identifies potential prob- lems associated with safe and efficient cleanup operations. It addresses proc- ess planning, the cleaning process, the problem of changeover, and methods of equipment preparation. Chapter 6, Training, stresses the need for educating operating personnel. Applying appropriate methods in the performance of their jobs is a key component in promoting plant safety. Chapter 7, Plant Safety Programs and Auxiliary Topics, covers plantwide systems and more general programs whose purpose is the improvement of the overall plant safety performance. A glossary and a compilation of abbreviations and acronyms are also provided.
REFERENCES
1. Englund, S. M., Opportunities in the Design of Inherently Safer Chemical Plants.
In Advances in Chemical Engineering, Vol. 15, pp. 73-135, Academic Press, San Diego, 1990.