Control of Electrostatic Hazards

Occurrence of electrostatic sparks is ubiquitous in industrial processes and everyday life. While such a spark is sometimes merely a nuisance like a zap on your hands when you touch a door knob, it can ignite a gas, vapor or dust cloud, causing catastrophic explosions and/or flashfires. 

 

Static sparks strike almost silently and unexpectedly with surprises, as in the following example instances when static sparks triggered severe flashfires or explosions in our clients facilities, and our experts performed investigations of static electricity and helped our clients to investigate incidents, and provided solutions for prevention and control:

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• Hydrogen gas in a wet scrubber system mysteriously exploded;

• An operator was hit by a flame of hydrogen gas as a by-product of powder surface treatment when taking a powder sample from a powder blender fitted with nitrogen-inerting system; 

• Flame flashed out of hands of an operator during parts cleaning operation;

• Flame erupted suddenly from the top of flammable liquid-based product cans in a packing line;

• A container in a liquid product filling line suddenly become bulged;

• Dust flashfire in a PVC plant;

• Two operators who were pouring a metal powder into a process vessel all of sudden were engulfed in a fireball of the metal powder, which spiraled upwards from the bottom of the vessel;

• Two operators who were feeding a powdered reagent into a reactor from a supersack (FIBC) struck with pressure and dust flame coming out of the enclosed powder feeding hopper fitted with nitrogen inerting system;

• A dust explosion took place in a feeding hopper when a chemical powder is being fed into a reactor;

• A dust explosion took place in a fluid bed granulator of stainless steel construction in a pharmaceutical plant;

• Reactors in a newly commissioned plant got a lot of pin holes in the lining of the reactors and pipes;

• Bubbles were formed between the product coat and the polymeric substrate resulting in product defects;

• A consumer was hit with flame coming from an aerosol can when he was applying the product;

• An operator is knocked out (unconscious) when he was vacuuming floors of train/truck unloading terminal in an aluminum refinery.

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Because static charges can be generated on a wide range of materials, a static hazard control program has to consider, evaluate and control all plant operating elements, including raw materials, products, process equipment, containers, pipes, process condition, operations, people involved, PPEs, tools/implements, flooring and ventilation/air-conditioning systems.

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Therefore, static hazard control can be intrigued by all these factors inherent to the processes and operations and materials' physical properties and interactions between materials and various elements of plant operations.

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Often, many fires and explosions are attributed to lack of recognition of static hazards and/or adequate/effective safety measures. In some cases, people rely on some common experience to control static electricity, however, this can be risky because under certain conditions, these practice may not be working if a change of material, equipment, process condition is made.

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Sometimes, static electricity is blamed as the culprit of a fire or explosion incident without convincing proof from adequate evaluations. This can also be dangerous because the real ignition sources/hazards will be overlooked if one blames the wrong source of ignition. Under such a circumstance, a recurrence of the same or similar fire or explosion will very likely to happen in the future.

 

You may rest assured that our experts will bring the extensive and comprehensive expertise and experience to your facilities to identify, assess, and quantify the electrostatic hazards in your facilities, and recommend effective and practical solutions to prevent and control these hazards, as explained in the following paragraphs.​