[Che-student-staff-list] Lessons learned: safety incident in FRNY

[Nagy, Gabriela]

Good afternoon, everyone,

I wanted to share with you a safety incident that happened in our School last week, on Tuesday, August 22, 2017. The incident took place in one of the labs on second floor, old wing of FRNY, around 5:30 pm. Please see below the details and lessons learned:

Incident description:
A metal heating chamber was used in an experiment performed at elevated temperature (200 °C ). Inside the chamber there was a piece of cardboard placed there in the past (few years ago), by a former member of the group. The purpose of this cardboard was unknown by current group members, but it presumably provided some amount of insulation by covering some gaps in the chamber's interior walls. The chamber was heated to 200 °C in a nitrogen atmosphere. At around 5:30 pm, the chamber was opened to view the sample, allowing air to enter the chamber. This caused the cardboard to combust, creating a fire. There was only one researcher in the lab at that time.

Immediate action taken:
The researcher switched off the heating to the chamber, and attempted to extinguish the fire by using the fire extinguisher inside the lab (type B/C). This attempt was unsuccessful; the fire extinguisher was emptied without the fire being put off. Another researcher came to the scene to help, and two additional fire extinguishers were emptied in an unsuccessful attempt to extinguish the fire. Finally, the fire was extinguished using a small amount of water. The water evaporated as steam, preventing any significant water damage to nearby electronics.

Actions taken to prevent future occurrences:

·         All combustible materials will be removed from the chamber prior to using the setup at elevated temperatures.

·         The role of the initial piece of cardboard in the chamber is being investigated, to determine whether it is necessary. If deemed important, this will be replaced with a similar piece, made of a different material, suitable for use at elevated temperatures.

·         Group members will be educated on fire safety, including types of fire extinguishers and their limitation on extinguishing fires.

·         The safety officer will develop SOP for the use of the setup, to include a check list before the start of the experiment.

Lessons learned:
Should a fire develop in the lab, the best course of action is always to pull the fire alarm and evacuate the building. Purdue has a Fire Department an campus and once the fire alarm in the building is activated, they are here within 5 minutes to respond to the incident. Each lab is equipped with a fire extinguisher; most of them are class B/C, suitable to extinguish fires from flammable and combustible liquids and from electrical equipment. Therefore, these extinguishers are not suitable to extinguish fires from paper, wood and plastic (require extinguisher type A). Fire extinguishers should only be used by emergency personnel, or by trained people.

In this particular case, closing the chamber and thus eliminating the access of oxygen to the inside of the chamber, would have extinguished the fire. It is important to know the dynamics of the fire: fire needs 3 elements to exist and by eliminating one element you put the fire off. This is known as the "Fire Triangle", see the picture below.

[cid:image003.png at 01D32352.4518CCE0]

I hope that sharing this incident with you will prevent similar situations from happening in our School.

Thank you for your commitment to safety!

Sincerely,
Gabriela
On behalf of the ChE safety Committee

__________________
Gabriela Nagy, PhD
Industrial Education Director
Davidson School of Chemical Engineering
Room FRNY G041D
Purdue University
Tel: (765)-496-1710
E-mail: nagyg at purdue.edu<mailto:nagyg at purdue.edu>


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: </ECN/mailman/archives/che-student-staff-list/attachments/20170901/ad87669c/attachment-0001.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: image003.png
Type: image/png
Size: 21980 bytes
Desc: image003.png
URL: </ECN/mailman/archives/che-student-staff-list/attachments/20170901/ad87669c/attachment-0001.png>