Thermal hazard accident investigation of hydrogen peroxide mixing with propanone employing calorimetric approaches

Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), historically, due to its broad applications in the chemical industries, has caused many serious fires and explosions around the world. Its thermal hazards may also be incurred by an incompatible reaction with other chemicals, and a runaway reaction may be induced in the last stage. This study applied thermal analytical methods to explore the H2O2 leading to these accidents by incompatibility and to discuss what might be formed by the upset situations. Thermal hazard analysis contained a solvent, propanone (CH3COCH3, so-called acetone), which was deliberately selected to mix with H2O2 for investigating the degree of thermal hazard. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and vent sizing package 2 (VSP2) were employed to evaluate the thermal hazard of H2O2. The results indicated that H2O2 is highly hazardous while mixed with propanone, as a potential contaminant. The time to maximum rate (TMR) was used as emergency response time in the chemical industries. Therefore, TMR of H2O2 was calculated to be 70 min for runaway reaction (after T0) and TMR of H2O2/propanone was discovered to be 27 min only. Fire and explosion hazards could be successfully lessened if the safety-related data are properly imbedded into manufacturing processes.

► We have evaluated incompatible characteristics of H2O2 with propanone under runaway reactions in this study.
► Adiabatic time to maximum rate (TMRad) of 20 mass% H2O2 was calculated ca. 70 min while temperature of reactor is after T0.
► We used mathematical method to determine the critical temperature Tc of 20 mass% H2O2 that was pointed out at 116 °C.