Training > Chemical and Process Safety for Development Chemists

Chemical and Process Safety for Development Chemists

Date: 22 May - 23 May 2023

Location: Brussels, Belgium

Chemical process safety incidents can be very different in nature, going from bulging reagent drums waiting to burst, over limited spills in the lab due to sudden gas release, to catastrophic runaway reactions in the plant. They mostly have one thing in common: understanding the interplay between the chemistry involved and the physical consequences could have prevented them.

In this course, the basics of chemical process safety are explained, always starting from the underlying chemistry. A lot of emphasis will be put on heat and gas evolution, how they affect the inherent process safety and how they can be measured in the lab. Basic scale-up calculations for both gas and heat evolution will be explained using examples and exercises. Guidelines will be given to prevent possible issues with heat transfer at larger scale. The importance of stability data of chemicals, reaction mixtures and products will be explained, together with different tools to determine them experimentally. Background will be provided to understand and interpret the results of reaction calorimetry and thermal stability experiments. Safety aspects of upstream or downstream processes like storage and waste streams will be discussed. The safety benefits of flow chemistry will be explained, and the specific safety evaluation needed for such flow processes will be explored as well.

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Course Outline

Introduction

Large scale batch equipment

Retrieving safety information

Where to find safety information
Pitfalls of SDS data

Chemical choices

Choice of solvent
Choice of reagent : the usual susptects

Process safety at larger scale

Runaway scenario
Criticality classes

Heat evolution

Rules of thumb
Reaction calorimetry
Heat transfer coefficients
Safe scale-up of heat removal
Safety at reflux
Calculation of dosing times

Gas evolution

Rules of thumb
Measuring gas evolution in the lab
Safe scale-up of reactions with gas evolution

Study of the decomposition reaction

Screening methods
Adiabatic calorimetry
Autocatalysis
Determination of TMR_ad,24h
Kinetic modelling

Upstream and downstream

Safety aspects of storage of unstable chemicals
Safety incidents with waste streams

Flow chemistry

Safer processing in flow
Safety evaluation of flow processing

Requirements for safety studies

Intended process vs upset conditions
Interaction matrix
Chemical compatibility

Who Should Attend

Lab chemists working in process development
Chemical engineers working in chemical production and tech transfer
R&D managers in chemical development

What the delegates will gain

Understand the effect of heat and gas evolution on large scale synthesis
Understand how preliminary lab data can give insight in possible safety issues at scale
Understand how chemical reactivity can influence upstream and downstream issues in storage and waste streams
Understand how chemistry involved can influence operational issues like heat transfer, gas removal and reflux
Understand which data is needed for safe scale-up of batch processes

What's included

The course fee includes:

comprehensive course manual
coffee/tea refreshments breaks throughout each day
buffet lunch each day
course dinner on the first evening
course certificate

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