Combustion, Reactive Hazard, and Bioprocess Safety

Is bioprocess dangerous? How do we maintain safety? What is reactive hazard? What is biohazard? Chemical transformation, or biotransformation, means change. Any changes have irreversible consequences. Managing the changes can help us, but changes can also be harmful. The first line of defense on any potential unwanted transformations is isolation or containment. WHO defines four risk groups of biosafety levels. There are six key knowledge bases for biosafety. With chemical safety, substance identification is the first step. The global harmonized system of classification and labeling is generally accepted by the world health safety bodies. The hazards are divided into three categories: physical, health, and environmental. Chemical reactivity hazard is a situation where an uncontrolled reaction could result directly or indirectly in serious harm to people, property, or equipment. Fire and explosion are common reactivity hazards. To safeguard processes and facilities, one needs to first identify the threat by screening for reactivity hazards. Combustion processes proceed with chain reactions and the reaction is highly exothermic. Combined with the high activation energy, combustion depends largely on temperature. The overall reaction products can also vary (partial oxidation versus total oxidation). Partial oxidation reactions are important in the chemical industry. Pyrolysis and gasification of biomass, for example, are useful technologies in biomass conversion. An explosion is a fast, transient, exothermic reaction. Unintended and accidental explosions can occur due to: (1) the accumulation of reactive chemicals (gas, liquid, or solid) in confined space; (2) leakage of a “significant amount” of reactive chemicals (gas, liquid, or solid) to the atmosphere or environment; or (3) reactor runaway. As a bioprocess engineer, you will be responsible for creating safe processes and protecting the lives and health of your colleagues.