In the future, refining, petrochemical, and chemical industries need to review material verification programs to ensure that the maintenance procedures include sufficient controls and positive material identification (PMI) testing to prevent…

• Metal hydride materials of a composition which is not well characterized should be handled with procedures that assume a "worst case" for that class of materials, intermediates or precursors.
• Laboratory procedures should be in…

• Metal hydride materials of a composition which is not well characterized should be handled with procedures that assume a "worst case" for that class of materials, intermediates or precursors.
• Laboratory procedures should be in…

1. Test safety system components even if they are new.
2. Do not rely on listening for valve movement as confirmation that a valve is closing; measure downstream pressure to determine if the valve is really sealing properly.
3. …

Recommended Actions:

• The recommended safe storage time for AHF is two years. Contact the vendor for pick up and disposal for cylinders more than two years old. (Unused gas should also be returned, even if it has been less than two…

An important lesson to be derived from this incident is the need to carefully engineer and test all repairs and modifications to high-pressure process equipment.

Hazards should be eliminated to the extent possible rather than depending on workers to follow an operations manual.

Potassium carbonate draw-off operations should be improved, and the operations manual should be revised. The manual…

Failure of a diaphragm is not infrequent, but the seizure of the main nut threads is very rare. The manufacturer claimed this had never occurred before with this type of unit. The broken plunger is likely the result of poor instructions/…