Explosion and Fire at a Diesel Hydrogenation Plant
The incident affected the raw material buffer tank (design pressure 0.38 MPa) of a diesel hydrogenation unit in a refinery. This buffer tank is located between the hydrogenation reactor and the raw material storage tank. During pressure fluctuations in the lubricating oil system of a hydrogen compressor, the operator handled the situation improperly, resulting in an abnormal shutdown of the compressor, causing the hydrogen feed pump to interlock and stop.After the pump interlocked, the outlet valve was not closed in time and the two check valves failed. The high-pressure hydrogen gas in the system escaped into the tank. This caused an overpressure in the hydrogen buffer tank, which burst leading to a hydrogen-air explosion and a following fire, while diesel liquid spilled out to form a liquid pool on the ground.
Event Date
March 12, 2018
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Cause Comments
The immediate cause of the explosion was due to the tank being erroneously filled up with hydrogen. Part of the root cause sequence was the wrongful operations of the operator. However, if an operator executes a wrong action, the root cause could be lack of instruction, lack of training, or shortcomings in the design.
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
Hydrogen buffer tank, hydrogen compressor
Storage/Process Medium
Design Pressure
0
Location Type
Location description
Industrial Area
Operational Condition
Pre-event Summary
The plant is producing (600,000 tones/year of dieselThe hydrogen compressor was experiencing pressure fluctuations in the lubricating oil system
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
unknown
Event Nature
Emergency Action
unknown
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
Investigation report on the explosion of buffer tank.
B.Wang et al., Hydrogen related accidents and lesson learned, submitted to ICHS-2023