Release of Hydrogen During Hydrogenation
The event occurred at the hydrogenation unit of a pharamceutical company. 145 kg of hydrogen were released the atmosphere at the gas circulation pump, due to a maintenance error . A specialist company (third-party company), had replaced the cylinder head of pump, but during assembly they did not re-isntalled the prescribed temperature sleeve for the thermometer (the temperature sleeve is the pressure-bearing element). The safety flare of the affected plant was triggered, the plant operations management and plant fire brigade were called on duty, the hydrogen supply to the neighboring hydrogenation unit was stopped and the system was switched to circular operation.
Event Date
October 14, 2011
Record Quality Indicator
Region / Country
Event Initiating System
Classification of the Physical Effects
Nature of the Consequences
Cause Comments
The immediate cause was an error during re-assembling of the system after maintenance. A possible contributing cause could be a lack of maintenance instructions, or their shortcoming.
Facility Information
Application Type
Application
Specific Application Supply Chain Stage
Components Involved
hydrogen recirculation pump
Storage/Process Medium
Actual Pressure
200
Location Type
Location description
Unknown
Operational Condition
Pre-event Summary
Maintenance works had been completed by a third party.
Currency
Property Loss (onsite)
500
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
CORRECTIVE MEASURETo develop an assembly checklist together with the external (third party) company.
Event Nature
Emergency Action
The safety flare was triggered, so that the leakeds hydrogen could be realesed safely. Factory fire brigade and factory operations management were called on site.The hydrogen supply was stopped at the neighboring hydrogenation plants and the system was operated in closed-loop mode.
Detonation
No
Deflagration
No
High Pressure Explosion
No
High Voltage Explosion
No
Source Category
References
References
Event from Germal database ZEMA
https://www.infosis.uba.de/index.php/en/site/13947/zema/index.html
https://www.infosis.uba.de/index.php/en/binaries/asset/zema_ereignis/16…
(accessed December 2023)