Practice-oriented education with regard to explosion protection

The Hes­s­ian man­u­fac­tur­er asec­os, of type-test­ed safe­ty cab­i­nets accord­ing to the Euro­pean stan­dard DIN EN 14470 Part 1 (for the stor­age of flam­ma­ble liq­uids) and 2 (for the stor­age of pres­sur­ized gas cylin­ders), pub­lish­es an expert white paper on fire and explo­sion pro­tec­tion. The focus is on the prac­ti­cal assess­ment of the haz­ards of fill­ing and trans­fer oper­a­tions at a safe­ty cab­i­net. In addi­tion, the explo­sion haz­ard is assessed on safe­ty cab­i­nets with as well as with­out tech­ni­cal ventilation. 

Flammable liquids in workrooms 

The safe stor­age of flam­ma­ble liq­uids in bot­tles, can­is­ters or drums in work­rooms plays an impor­tant role in the risk assess­ment — pri­mar­i­ly with regard to fire and explo­sion protection. 

The most impor­tant goal is to min­i­mize the fire load in the work­rooms and to pre­vent the stored sub­stances from pos­ing an addi­tion­al haz­ard. For years, test­ed safe­ty cab­i­nets with a defined fire resis­tance accord­ing to the state of the art have proven their worth in this regard. Fur­ther­more, it must be checked whether and to what extent addi­tion­al explo­sion pro­tec­tion mea­sures are required. 

Practice-oriented assessment of explosion hazards 

After an intro­duc­tion to the legal prin­ci­ples, clas­si­fi­ca­tion, label­ing and safe­ty-relat­ed para­me­ters of flam­ma­ble liq­uids, asec­os makes a prac­tice-ori­ent­ed assess­ment of explo­sion haz­ards on safe­ty cab­i­nets. The results of series of mea­sure­ments sub­stan­ti­ate these state­ments. The focus is pri­mar­i­ly on the prac­tice-ori­ent­ed assess­ment of the haz­ards of fill­ing and trans­fer oper­a­tions on the cab­i­net. In addi­tion, the explo­sion haz­ard on safe­ty cab­i­nets with tech­ni­cal vent­ing is assessed and these are com­pared with safe­ty cab­i­nets with­out tech­ni­cal venting. 

What is an explosion and how does it occur? 

An explo­sion in the sense of explo­sion pro­tec­tion is a rapid­ly occur­ring com­bus­tion. This reac­tion leads to an increase in pres­sure and tem­per­a­ture, which can result in sig­nif­i­cant per­son­al injury, prop­er­ty dam­age and envi­ron­men­tal dam­age. Explo­sion pro­tec­tion can become an issue in a wide vari­ety of indus­tries, because many haz­ardous mate­ri­als that are han­dled on a dai­ly basis har­bor a cor­re­spond­ing poten­tial hazard.

These include flam­ma­ble liq­uids such as paints or sol­vents and their vapors, as well as swirled, com­bustible dusts. Three com­po­nents must be present for an explo­sion to occur: oxy­gen, a flam­ma­ble sub­stance, and an igni­tion source. If an igni­tion spark occurs and meets a mix­ture of com­bustible mate­r­i­al (dusts or gas­es) and oxy­gen, an explo­sion occurs. The mix­ing ratio between the flam­ma­ble sub­stance and oxy­gen is the deci­sive fac­tor. If the air is com­plete­ly sat­u­rat­ed with the flam­ma­ble sub­stance and no oxy­gen is present, no explo­sion will occur.

Con­verse­ly, if there is too much oxy­gen but lit­tle of the flam­ma­ble sub­stance, there will also be no explo­sion because the con­cen­tra­tion of the flam­ma­ble sub­stance is too low. This is referred to as the upper and low­er explo­sion lim­its. Regard­less of whether flam­ma­ble liq­uids are processed, trans­port­ed or stored: The right mea­sures must be tak­en to pro­tect employ­ees and equipment.