Event
- Event ID
- 661
- Quality
- Description
The incident occurred at the chlorine electrolyser. Failure of a strainer allowed sand from brine filters to get into mercury cells in a chlorine plant. It appears that the sand obstructed the flow and caused excessive hydrogen generation. An explosion occurred in the chlorine collection system.
- Event Initiating system
- Classification of the physical effects
- Hydrogen Release and Ignition
- Nature of the consequences
- Macro-region
- Europe
- Date
- Component involved
- electrolytic cell
- Failure mode
- internal explosion
- Initiating cause
- malfunctioning (electrolyser, cross-over)
- Root CAUSE analysis
The incident started with the failure of a filter responsible for retaining sand. An excessive sand presence in the electrolytic cell triggered an increase of hydrogen production and its transfer/cumulation in the chlorine line. The technical reasons for such phenomena are not provided.
- Root causes
- Unknown
- Date entry in HIAD
- 01/01/2020
Facility
- Application
- Chemical industry
- Sub-application
- Chlorine production
- Hydrogen supply chain stage
- All components affected
filter
- Process temperature range [C]
- Above ambient temperature (50°C to 100°C)
- Location type
- Unknown
- Location
- industrial area
- Operational condition
Emergency & Consequences
- Number of fatalities
- 0
- Number of injured persons
- 0
Lesson Learnt
- Corrective Measures
To monitor the pressure at the filter
In-depth data
- Release type
- gas mixture
- Involved substances (% vol)
- H2, CL2
- Release temperature [°C]
- 25
- Probable IGNITION SOURCE
- Explosion type
References
- Sources categories
- ICHEME
- Reference & weblink
Event nr 9841 of the UK database ICHEME in PDF format.
https://www.icheme.org/knowledge/safety-centre/resources/accident-data/
(accessed October 2020)The primary source was in the journal Loss of Prevention (vol. 3)
