Chemical Processes
Temperature, heat, pressure and kinetics of reaction
or decomposition under normal or runaway conditions.
Heat capacity of substances.
The Process Safety laboratory is fundamental to any chemical facility.
Whether synthesising small or large amounts of material each process step and compound needs assessing for thermal stability.
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Quick Screening
At an early stage, you can gain a fast indication of thermal instability through testing small samples with a DSC. It measures the temperature and heat of decomposition.
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Thermal Stability
You can test more in-depth any suspect materials from the screening stage. Due to the central role of gas releasing reactions in plant process hazards, samples of about 5-10g are heated in cells equipped with a pressure sensor.
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Adiabatic Tests
With an adiabatic reaction calorimeter (A.R.C.), you can test samples at minor to no heat loss conditions. Adiabatic conditions are a worst case scenario, but they are quite realistic for large plant vessels that lose heat slowly.
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Modelling
Thermokinetics and thermal safety software serve as a complement to all process safety studies. Scenarios can be modelled to reduce the number of actual experiments, speeding-up process safety testing.
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Process Understanding
After initial screening and/or thermal stability testing it’s necessary to understand the desired chemical reaction. You can use Reaction Calorimetry to determine how much heat is given out under normal operating conditions. The focus here is on heats of reaction, heat flows and gas evolution.
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