Thermal hazard analysis of cyclohexanone peroxide and its solutions

•Thermal hazard of CYHPO and its solutions were measured by DSC.•Differential isoconversional approach was adopted to evaluate kinetic parameters.•TMRad and SADT were calculated based on kinetic parameters and heat balance.•Finite element analysis was used to evaluate thermal explosion simulation of CYHPO in real conditions.

Cyclohexanone peroxide (CYHPO) is widely used in the chemical industry, but unfortunately, as an organic peroxide, it has been involved in many serious fires and explosions in daily manufacturing, storage, and transportation. We present an advanced methodology of application of thermal analysis for thermal hazard investigation of complex chemical reactions. The applied method is based on a differential isoconversional approach and involves the combination of non-isothermal differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and adiabatic measurements by accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC) for kinetic analysis and prediction. The kinetic parameters and heat balance were analyzed and used for a simulation of the adiabatic behavior: time to maximum rate under adiabatic conditions (TMRad) and self-accelerating decomposition temperature (SADT). Applications of finite element analysis (FEA) for heat balance and accurate kinetic description allowed us to determine the effect of scale, geometry, heat transfer, thermal conductivity, and ambient temperature on the heat accumulation process. The presented explosion simulations of the thermal behavior of 100 kg storage tank at different temperatures, related to the possible storage scenarios, may help in the elucidation of a real accident which occurred in Beijing during CYHPO storage.