Safe Handling of Chemical Substances

Safe Handling of Chemical Substances

Introduction

Occupational Safety and Health Programs are an important component of organizations . Occupational hazards are numerous and expensive to the organizations . There are laws that safeguard the employee 's physical and emotional well-being . As per Herzberg 's theory , working condition which assures safety is a factor of motivation in organizations . A cost-oriented manager understands the importance of avoiding accidents in his organization . Costs associated with leave due to illness disability compensations and alternate skilled employee placement are huge and have a negative impact on employee

morale . Organizations should ensure a safe work environment , which protects employees from physical hazards and unhealthy situations . This is important because employees are the Human Resources of an organization who contribute towards organizational success . In the U .K , the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH ) regulations and Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations (COMAH ) have stipulated strict safety norms for every industry in UK . As the Safety manager of the new production facility of the industrial gas production company producing Ammonia and Oxygen , it is important to evaluate the safety procedures based on the plant operations and chemical nature of these two highly reactive gases Oxygen is highly reactive releasing enormous energy in the process of combining with other reactive chemicals . Oxygen is produced as a gas or liquid by numerous methods like cryogenic distillation and adsorption technologies . The new production facility utilizes cryogenic distillation process for industrial oxygen production . Ammonia is another hyper reactive gas that is produced by the combination of Hydrogen and Nitrogen gases at high pressure and temperature in the presence of a catalyst . A pressure of around 200 atmospheric pressure and a temperature of about 500oC , give a 20 percent yield of ammonia with minimized maintenance costs and safety concerns during operation of the plant . Although Nitrogen is inert , Hydrogen ignites readily with oxygen to form an explosive gas called oxy-hydrogen . Further , Hydrogen has a high combustion energy release , which will spell disaster in case of accidents . Thus , it is extremely important to strictly adhere to the industrial safety norms to safeguard the working population and the population in the vicinity of the production site . The HYPERLINK "http /www .opsi .gov .uk /si /si1999 .htm " Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 (COMAH ) came into force from 1 April 1999 and are amended by the Control of Major Accident Hazards (Amendment ) Regulations 2005 from 30 June 2005 as per the Council Directive 96 /82 /EC known as the Seveso II Directive , as amended by Directive 2003 /105 /EC .This has replaced the Control of Industrial Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1984 (CIMAH ) in UK .Although COMAH applies mainly to the chemical industry , some storage activities , explosives and nuclear sites , and other industries where threshold quantities of dangerous substances identified in the Regulations are used also comes under its stipulations . Statutory Instruments1999 , No .743 , The Control of Major Accident Hazards Regulations 1999 clearly defines that every operator shall take all measures necessary to prevent major accidents...