Event
- Event ID
- 599
- Quality
- Description
An explosion and fire occurred on a reformer at a fertiliser plant. Source of ignition was auto ignition or electric motor.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Date
- Component involved
- reactor / oven / furnace / test chamber
- Failure mode
- leak & ignition
- Initiating cause
- unknown
- Root CAUSE analysis
The INITIATING CAUSE is unknown.
The ROOT CAUSE was classified by ICHEME as "Operator error", without providing however any detail. Therefore, considering also the very human temptation to identify any incident as human error, this case in HIAD should be given as cause unknown'.- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Chemical industry
- Sub-application
- Fertilisers production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
reformer
- Process temperature range [C]
- High temperature (100°C to 500°C)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
- UNKNOWN
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas mixture (syngas)
- Involved substances (% vol)
- syngas
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
References
- Sources categories
- ICHEME
- Reference & weblink
Event description extracted from the UK database ICHEME in PDF
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/
(accessed October 2020)
