Gepubliceerd op 05/12/23 2 Views

An explosion and fire occurred at a plant producing rubber drug-delivery components (e.g. syringe plungers, vial seals, septums etc). The semi-continuous manufacturing process involved compounding batches of rubber in mixers, rolling them into strips, and then either moulding them on site or shipping them off site. To reduce the stickiness of the rubber, the rolled strips were first conveyed through a tank containing a slurry of very fine polyethylene powder in water. The coated rubber stripes were then air dried with fans. The explosion occurred abruptly with while the plant was openly normally. Six workers were killed, 38 more (including 2 responding firefighters) were injured and much of the plant was destroyed.

Ask yourself and your crew:

How can something like this happen here (e.g. on our site)?
What safety measures (i.e. procedures, controls/barriers) do we have in place to mitigate the risk?
How do we know the risk controls/barriers are working?
What improvements or changes should we make to the procedures, controls/barriers or the way we work?

Original content courtesy of IChemE Safety Centre