Incident investigation of hydrogen explosion and fire in a residue desulfurization process

IF 3.6 3区工程技术 Q2 ENGINEERING, CHEMICAL

Journal of Loss Prevention in The Process Industries Pub Date : 2024-10-05 DOI:10.1016/j.jlp.2024.105458

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

A large hydrogen explosion and fire occurred on October 27, 2022 in a residue desulfurization (RDS) process in a refinery in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. RDS is an important process that use hydrogen to convert the sulfur in the fuel into hydrogen sulfide for producing low sulfur fuel. The incident occurred during pressurization of the RDS reactors and downstream coolers by hydrogen. The incident led to significant damages to the downstream coolers and some part of the RDS reactors. Detailed incident investigation was carried out. A reactor effluent air cooler (REAC) in the downstream of RDS reactors was found to be ruptured in the rectangular header box. With security videos, process DCS data, leak and dispersion modelling, and actual damage on the process, it is possible to reproduce the leak rate, size of the initial fireball and damages done to the process. It is also found that the hydrogen leak was accompanied by prompt ignition which is commonly encountered in high-pressure hydrogen services. Recommendations are made to prevent and mitigate any future incident from the RDS process.

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残渣脱硫过程中氢气爆炸和火灾事故调查

2022 年 10 月 27 日，台湾高雄市一家炼油厂的残留物脱硫 (RDS) 过程发生大规模氢气爆炸和火灾。残渣脱硫是利用氢气将燃料中的硫转化为硫化氢以生产低硫燃料的重要工艺。事故发生在用氢气对 RDS 反应器和下游冷却器加压的过程中。事故导致下游冷却器和 RDS 反应器的某些部分严重受损。对事故进行了详细调查。发现 RDS 反应堆下游的一个反应堆出水空气冷却器（REAC）在矩形集箱中破裂。通过安全视频、工艺 DCS 数据、泄漏和扩散模型以及工艺上的实际损坏，可以再现泄漏率、初始火球大小以及对工艺造成的损坏。研究还发现，氢气泄漏伴随着高压氢气服务中常见的迅速点火现象。为防止和减轻今后在 RDS 过程中发生任何事故提出了建议。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Loss Prevention in The Process Industries 工程技术-工程：化工

CiteScore

7.20

自引率

14.30%

发文量

226

审稿时长

52 days

期刊介绍： The broad scope of the journal is process safety. Process safety is defined as the prevention and mitigation of process-related injuries and damage arising from process incidents involving fire, explosion and toxic release. Such undesired events occur in the process industries during the use, storage, manufacture, handling, and transportation of highly hazardous chemicals.