A violent explosion occurred at a blast furnace. The explosion occurred while the blast furnace was being cleaned at the end of casting. For this purpose, worker poured the contents of a casting ladle, comprising slag and cinders, into a pit situated nearby. The pit contained more water than usual due to a considerable amount of rain in the preceding days.The heat of the slag apparently caused dissociation of the oxygen and hydrogen of the water, and he hydrogen then exploded, sending slag flying as far as 10-20 m.

A fire and a series of explosions occurred on a petrochemical plant, causing damage to process vessels, containment walls and process utility piping. It is believed that lightning struck a two story tall compressed hydrogen tank, which caused explosion in an aluminum alkyls distillation vessel. It was not known why the hydrogen tank exploded as it was equipped with relief valves and was grounded.

A severe fire in a hydrogen compressor building in a unifier unit of an oil sands refinery reportedly started in a 1,500 psi lube oil system. Fire fighting was difficult because of 40 degrees F temperatures. The building reportedly housed three centrifugal hydrogen recycle compressors, a centrifugal natural gas compressor and two 4,000 horsepower reciprocating compressors.

An explosion at a refinery Hydrotreater plant involving a furnace and hydrogen caused by faulty operation. Source of ignition was furnace.

During the start-up of a propylene hydrogenation reactor, very high temperatures were generated in the catalyst bed. At the time, propylene and hydrogen were being fed to the reactor which contained a granular catalyst. The temperature rose rapidly, and the hydrogen supply valve tripped at 176 degrees C.

The event occurred in the hydrogen pumping station, placed between the hydrogen production unit (steam methane reformer) and the hydro-treatment unit. The second stage of the compressor cylinder released hydrogen into the confined compressor building, and which ignited. The failure was caused over-pressure in the piston, probably induced by ice blockage on the interstage cooler and the failure of the compressor housing heating system.

An explosion occurred in a water skim tank associated with an ethyl benzene dehydrogenation reactor system. The reaction mixture from the reactors containing styrene, ethylbenzene, benzene, toluene, hydrogen, C02 and steam. Following separation in a "separator", the water layer containing entrained hydrocarbons and styrene polymers, passes to the skin tank where future separation of the two phases taken place. An emergency plant shutdown, due to partial electric power failure, was carried out and the explosion occurred about one hour later.

An incident occurred on a compressor at a refinery Fluid Catalytic Cracker Unit (FCCU) plant involving hydrogen. Source of ignition was hot surface.

Weld failure caused a fire involving a hydrogen pipe at a fertilizer ammonia plant. Source of ignition was autoignition.

Discharge pressure of a hydrogen compressor on a chloride plant fell to alarm level without any prior warning and simultaneously three bumps were heard.Smoke was seen coming from the hot motor bearing and the machine had to be stopped locally as it had not tripped.