How to prevent occupational poisoning in chemical industry?

The use of raw and auxiliary materials in the chemical production process, intermediates produced by the process, by-products and obtained target products as well as the “three wastes” produced are the sources of toxic substances. Employees in the production process, inspection and maintenance operations, raw material storage and transportation, product packaging, on-site management, and "three wastes" treatment process are all harmed by occupational poisoning.

August 21, 2015, a Chemical Co., Ltd. Jiangxi fluorinated refrigerant plant maintenance workshop in flange leakage disposal process takes place hydrofluoric acid splash to work a human face, with lead poisoning, resulting in one death. May 16, 2015, Shanxi Jincheng Chemical Co., Ltd. at the time of a second workshop on the South oven battery # 3 # 9 condenser cooling pool for maintenance operations, maintenance personnel inhaled hydrogen sulfide leak caused one person died of poisoning, blind Shi Rescue caused another seven poisoning deaths. The accident caused a total of 8 deaths and 6 injuries.

Therefore, we must pay enough attention to the risk of occupational poisoning in the chemical industry and raise the level of prevention of occupational poisoning.

I. Analysis of causes of occupational poisoning in chemical process

Occupational poisoning is caused by chemical poisons. The hazards and risks of poisons have a certain concealment. Operators have certain paralysis of the harm to poisons, lack of vigilance, manifested as low awareness of prevention, and lack of preventive measures. Its performance:

1 , management reasons

1 Toxic knowledge of chemicals is widespread and education is not enough. Relative to the explosive, combustible, corrosive, and other risks of chemicals, companies do not have enough awareness of poisoning, and their employees' awareness of prevention is not strong.

2 The awareness of preventing occupational poisoning is not enough. Do not investigate or analyze some minor injuries, such as irritation, anesthesia, and sensitization, which are chemical poisonings, and treat minor poisonings as not being an injury accident.

3 The implementation of the rules and regulations is not sufficient, the rectification of hidden troubles is not timely, the quality of the rectification is not high, and the management personnel stop the violation of the regulations;

4 The investigation and handling after occupational poisoning (slight poisoning) was small and did not play a warning role;

5 The emergency rescue drill is not enough, and the on-site disposal capacity is poor. It is very deplorable to blindly rescue the secondary accident.

6 Enterprises lack occupational health management and poison prevention professionals;

7 The management of the site is chaotic, equipment management is chaotic, and chemical management is chaotic.

Objective reasons

1 The toxicological performance of the substance is not intuitive and difficult to identify. The poisoning mechanism is relatively complicated. It is difficult for enterprises and employees to control, and some employees only judge the toxicity by the irritating taste;

2 Toxic substances include skin, respiratory tract and digestive tract. The poisonous substances have solid, liquid and gaseous forms. Toxins harm the human body in various forms. The damage link exists in the whole process of chemical production and is not easy to grasp. ;

3 The toxicological identification and toxicological mechanism of poisonous substances are not mastered. Most companies judge and evaluate them based on experience. There are omissions and unknown circumstances, and there are also intentional avoidance of physical poisoning of employees.

4 The consequences of poisoning have some contingency, accumulation, superposition and lag.

Protective reason

1Personal protective equipment and equipment are not fully equipped, inadequate, or incorrect;

2 Insufficient maintenance at the site, insufficient updating, and defects in emergency use;

3 There was luck in the operation process, improper wear, and maintenance was not timely, and the on-site supervision was not enough;

4 wrong use of anti-virus equipment, did not play a protective effect.

Facility reason

1 Engineering design is not enough for the prevention of occupational poisoning facilities, isolation, ventilation, automatic detection and alarm, emergency facilities, etc. can not meet the protection requirements;

2 The process is backward, the degree of automation is low, and the human body is easy to come into contact with poisonous articles when feeding, discharging, separating and on-site inspection;

3 that there are defects in process design, intermediate processes produce hazardous intermediates or incompletely hazardous substances, and are discharged into the job site environment without effective treatment;

4 Equipment and facilities are not good enough, use open separation, removal, evaporation, drying equipment and facilities, there is leakage, proliferation, volatility;

5 Operation is backward, manual, close-range operation is vulnerable to injury;

6 Anti-virus, emission, absorption, and detection facilities are damaged or stopped;

7 The design of the discharge, the height of the sewage pipeline, and the discharge port are not standardized and may accidentally release toxic substances.

Reason for violation

1Without replacement, processing, and testing qualified to enter the confined space, the lack of operation process detection and monitoring;

2 Violation of command and forceful risky operations, risking operations in the event that the hazardous substance is unknown or protective measures are not in place;

3 The operator has the mentality of being lucky, lazy, and circumspect. He cannot properly wear protective equipment, for example, the respirator mask is not tightly fitted;

(4) Insufficient protection of raw materials, products, etc., exposure to water or taboo chemicals, release of poisonous gases and other substances;

5 Blindly rescued, the damage was enlarged.

Second, the main process of chemical process poisoning analysis

1 , maintenance links

1 Equipment, pipeline damage, leakage, poisoning during disposal, inspection and maintenance.

2 Unauthorized or lack of protective measures blindly enter restricted space for maintenance.

3 Unexpected equipment breakage and damage during the inspection and repair process.

4 During the installation of the equipment, asphyxiating injury occurs when replacing with nitrogen or entering a confined space.

5 After the inspection and repair, it did not recover in time.

Operation

1 chemical process due to out of control reaction conditions or equipment failure caused by toxic gas, liquid leakage, harm the surrounding personnel.

2 Dispose chemicals illegally to produce hazardous substances.

3 The individual's self-protection awareness is not strong. If the protective equipment is not suitable or is not worn properly, it will be reluctant to take care of it and make progress. In the process of operation, the human body inhales or comes into contact with toxic substances.

4 The separation of volatiles and toxic substances such as separation, centrifugation, pressure filtration, drying and drying;

5 Poor personal hygiene habits, inadequate flushing after contact with chemicals, insufficient cleaning before meals, and snacks on Post drinking water.

3 equipment failure

1 Leakage of equipment, pipelines, storage tanks, and chemical leakage directly injure personnel.

2 Equipment maintenance is not timely, leaving hidden dangers.

3 Damaged packaging, leakage of toxic substances, diffusion or exposure to water, air release of toxic substances.

4 Change the reaction process due to equipment failure and generate unexpected toxic substances.

Test link

1 Use asphyxiating gas to test for leaks, violations of regulations, and asphyxiation accidents.

2 Test equipment failure occurred toxic gas leakage.

3 The new reaction mechanism of the test, the hazards of new substances are not clear, and poisonous events occur during the trial exploration.

III. Countermeasures to Prevent Occupational Poisoning in Chemical Processes

Occupational poisoning accidents occur in the chemical industry from time to time, exposing measures to prevent poisoning are not in place, methods are not perfect, and responsibilities are not fulfilled. Therefore, it is imperative to strengthen preventive measures.

1 Conduct an assessment

1Comprehensively and accurately identify the hazards of process chemicals, collect complete data on the nature of toxic substances, conduct risk assessment and confirmation, and clarify on-site hazard sources;

2 to identify and evaluate the toxicity of the intermediate products produced by the reaction process and the risk of toxicity under abnormal process conditions;

3 Test and confirm the toxicity of new substances;

4 Occupational health protection files are formed, and the company's chemical toxicity in the entire process is ranked and communicated to all those who come into contact with the toxic substances. Attention is paid to the operation process of personnel exposed to toxic substances.

Specification design

1 To carry out targeted engineering design on toxic hazards and build safety facilities such as ventilation, inert operation, partial isolation, and detection alarms;

2 Plan layout according to the regulations to reduce the harm of poisons to the places where personnel are concentrated, and at the same time pay attention to the distance of protection from the adjacent units;

3 Optimize the technological process and technological process, replace the high toxic and highly toxic substances with low toxicity, simplify and optimize the reaction process, and reduce the generation, emission and diffusion of toxic substances;

4Specify storage and packaging facilities and equipment to prevent accidental leakage; Design targeted prevention facilities for solid, liquid, and gaseous poisonous products in different states;

5 Improve chain alarms, emergency discharge and absorption systems;

6 Select equipment and equipment with high degree of automation, high reliability, and large safety factor to avoid unorganized space emissions.

Strict management

1 Execute rules and regulations for the prevention of occupational hazards, regulations and related guidelines. According to the company's operating procedures, operating environment and exposure to toxic substances, strict operational procedures and operating procedures are established to increase safety awareness and increase investment in prevention of poisoning;

2 Increase education and training, carry out education on chemical safety knowledge and warning education on typical accident cases;

3 Regularly conduct physical examinations on personnel exposed to occupational hazards, adjust personnel positions that are not suitable for working in poisonous environments, and recruit high school or above-level personnel to engage in operations that are toxic;

4 Strictly restricted space operations, inspection and maintenance operations inspection, audit, approval, and inspection. According to a retrospective analysis, statistical analysis of "multiple casualties" occurred in the chemical system since the founding of New China, and another 55% of the results occurred in inspection and repair operations;

5 standard operating procedures, to prevent erroneous operations, strict personal protective equipment wear, stop violations, eliminate hidden dangers, and increase on-site inspections;

6 Eliminate leakage of equipment facilities and storage tanks and increase preventive maintenance of equipment;

7 Carry out real-time monitoring and monitoring, equipped with rescue equipment, often carry out emergency drills, master on-site disposal and emergency evacuation procedures, and do no risk-taking;

8 Strengthen the company's on-site management, standardize the role of procedures and chemicals management, eliminate running, running, dripping and leaking.

The information in this article comes from the Internet and was reorganized and edited by China Rescue Equipment Network.