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Out-of-control reactions, production equipment maintenance, gas leaks, and irregular operation and placement of gas cylinders may cause safety hazards and lead to factory explosions. What are the specific causes of factory explosions and preventive measures?

The cause of the explosion in the factory

1. An explosion caused by an out-of-control reaction

Some irregular and incorrect operations may cause the gas in the container to become out of control. For example, during a power outage or water outage, the heat of reaction in the container accumulates, and the temperature during the reaction rises sharply, causing the internal pressure of the container to continuously increase, which in turn leads to an explosion accident. If the reaction is intense during the normal process, then when the operator closes the cooling water valve in violation of regulations, the overpressure and ultrahigh temperature under polymerization will promote the rapid circulation of reactants, thereby generating more static electricity, leading to explosion problems. During the investigation, it was found that the cause of some industrial gas explosion accidents was that workers had out-of-control reactions when trying new processes, which led to reactor explosions.

2. Fire and explosion caused by maintenance of production equipment

Industrial gases have relatively complex production equipment, and some dangerous gases will remain on the production pipelines. When workers perform maintenance work, static electricity will be generated due to mechanical friction, which can easily cause fires and lead to explosion accidents. Industrial gas explosions may occur if flammable, explosive, toxic, harmful, or corrosive substances remain in industrial gas equipment and pipelines. Frequent maintenance operations are inseparable from fire. Mistakes occur during operations, or isolation operations are not performed in accordance with relevant standards. Cleaning devices fail to be replaced and organized, as well as some illegal operating behaviors occur.

3. Gas leakage causes explosion

When industrial flammable and explosive gases or toxic and harmful gases leak and mix with air to reach a certain concentration, once they come into contact with an external open flame, a relatively violent explosion accident will inevitably occur. Two conditions are required for a combustion explosion to occur: first, the concentration of the mixture of flammable gas and air reaches the explosion limit, forming an explosive mixed gas; second, an open flame that can ignite the explosive mixed gas. Direct fire sources include: open flames, electric sparks, and indirect fire sources: high temperature, light radiation, and chemical reaction heat.

4. Gas cylinder explosion

If industrial production units fail to perform inspection and management of gas bottles in accordance with regulations, then after gas collision, the introduced gas will react chemically with the gas remaining in the bottle, and an explosion may occur in severe cases. A serious lack of acetone in the filled acetylene cylinder can cause an explosion; overfilling of the cylinder can also cause an explosion. Finally, mixing gas cylinders can cause an explosion.

How to prevent explosion accidents?

1. Industrial enterprises that are prone to produce flammable, explosive, toxic and harmful gases need to expand some safety facilities according to the project to ensure simultaneous design and construction with the main project.

2. Workers who come into contact with flammable, explosive, toxic and harmful gases must wear anti-static work clothes during the operation and strictly implement the company’s production regulations.

3. In the production site, there must be warning signs such as “No open flames allowed”. Warehouses storing gas products must be well ventilated.

4. Install gas detection alarms to prevent gas leaks, fires, explosions and other accidents. However, the accuracy of gas detection alarms should be calibrated every year during use.