Process Wednesday: huh, that's a lot of "NEVER"s
Via a random Googling, I happened upon Dow's "Dow Answer Center" with a few helpful suggestions for handling acrylic acid:
- NEVER thaw frozen acrylic acid with steam!
- NEVER remove acrylic acid liquid from a partially thawed container!
- NEVER allow an incompatible material (peroxide, peroxide former, inhibitor or oxygen scavenger, strong bases, mineral acids, or iron oxide/rust) to come in contact with GAA or Acrylate Esters!
- NEVER sparge Nitrogen through MEHQ inhibited GAA or Acrylate Esters!
- NEVER blanket MEHQ inhibited GAA or Acrylate Ester tanks with Nitrogen!
- NEVER store MEHQ inhibited Acrylate Esters above 104 F (40 C)!
- NEVER store MEHQ inhibited GAA above 90 F (32C)!
- NEVER deadhead pumps containing MEHQ inhibited GAA or Acrylate Esters!
- NEVER use steam to heat Acrylate Esters or GAA in storage!
- NEVER store MEHQ inhibited GAA or Acrylate Esters beyond the 1 year shelf life! Re-inhibiting with MEHQ and sparging with Oxygen will not extend the life!
While some of these are certainly understandable (gee, thawing acrylic acid with steam seems like a terrible idea), some of them (don't deadhead a pump with acrylic acid in it) is obvious only with some hindsight (if you're not used to dealing with pumps in the plant, anyway.)
It's funny to me how safety literature is mostly of the "polite suggestions" variety, with strong words ("always", "never") reserved for material that has some pretty remarkable consequences. Considering that a random Googling of acrylate accidents reveals quite a few of them (including a plant explosion in Georgia that injured 6 and killed 1), following the 10 "NEVER"s seems like a good idea.
Process Wednesday: huh, that's a lot of "NEVER"s
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