i am a safety man in Chemical/petrochemical plant which still under construction concerning in utilizing Ethylene to produce Ethylene dichloride , Vinyl Chloride and PVC so i woul like safety topices focusing in that industry
I would guess that your safety program would have to have two general parts:
- The normal and customary safety program used in a chemical/industrial facility ( ie. Confined space program, hot work program, fall protection etc.)
-A specialty program devoted to the specific raw and finished chemical used at your plant(ie. railcar safety, safety at plant flares, special fire protection areas etc)
You should be reviewing plant layouts, be familiar with explosive/non-explosive protected areas and be reviewing the safety programs of other similar plants owned by the parent company.
Try and visit an existing facility to see what is going on there. You may even to be able to establish a safety liaison group that can co-direct efforts at safety in pvc plants in general with a view to sharing info and attempting to standardize on some issues.
There is an association called VCSA-Vinyl Chloride Safety Association that meets once per year. You must be a producer to join. Contact Dow or OxyVinyls and they can direct you to a contact to join. Also, you should get familiar with NESHAPS VV which deals with EDC/VCM/PVC production(40 CFR)....Also, OSHA has very strict guidelines for VCM exposure....go to OSHA and search....(29cfr).
Also, suggest encyclopedia of PVC- it starts with EDC to PVC. Good sections on Safety, Envrionmental, and even the process issues. I used this quite a bit...been in the EDC/VCM/PVC business for 26 years.
my favorite is ethylene decomposition. A ethylene plant in Europe was destroyed by the simple act of changing a bordon tube type gauge. The gauge was purged with N2 and threaded on the 1/2" valve. The operator open the valve as fast as he could. The N2 compressed and the heat of compression raised the N2 temp to over 500F and the ethylene in the system decomposed and the plant had a huge fire.
In the late 70's ARCO installed heat suppresion systems on their pipelines just upstream of their underground storage systems in Texas. The theory was that if a decomp started, it would travel at the speed of sound along the pipeline and into the 1 millon pounds in storage.
Adding to the sage advice posted by MJCronin here is a list of nonspecific presentations from the University of Vermont. Give in the preamble are several other good reference sites, especially the Google Videos.