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Analysis of accidents in biogas production and upgrading
Abstract
In the last 10 years biogas production tripled, resulting in an increasing number of related facilities. The present study addresses safety issues of such activity on the basis of past accident analysis. A database of accidents related to biogas supply chain was created and data on 169 accidents were collected from different literature sources. Trends, causes of accidents, scenarios, and consequences were analysed also using Multi Correspondence Analysis to obtain correlations between causes of accidents and scenarios. The study showed that almost 12% of the past accident analysed can be classified as major accidents. The number of accidents is growing faster than biogas production. A risk assessment was carried, based on the analysis of accident frequencies and consequences. A non-negligible risk profile, typical of ALARP zone, was obtained for this industrial sector, revealing an emerging risk issue. The main lessons learnt are the need of developing and adopting specific safety standards and of improving the safety culture and risk awareness in the biogas production sector.
... Due to the increasing energy demand associated to human activities, the development and implementation of biomass-derived renewable energy is one of the most exploited strategies. In this framework, biogas production is among the most promising technologies, actually involving more than 350 GWh produced per year (Casson Moreno et al., 2016;Trávníček et al., 2018) and hundreds of thousands of installations around the world (World Biogas Association, 2019). In numbers, the biogas sector counts approximately 132000 plants operating worldwide (and an additional 50 million of micro-scale digesters). ...
... Biogas plants present multiple positive aspects, such as the possibility to treat different organic wastes, ranging from sludges of wastewaters to biomasses (Yadvika et al., 2004). However, biogas plants growth goes along with several criticalities: between 2006 and 2016, 208 accidents occurred in Europe only (Trávníček et al., 2018), showing a remarkable rising trend from 1995 to 2014 (Casson Moreno et al., 2016). Fig. 1 shows the trend, evidencing a rapid increase in the number of worldwide accidents (169 in the period analyzed and over 80 between 2011 and 2014). ...
... Most common accidents involve the formation of explosive methaneair mixtures, leakage of hydrogen sulfide (H 2 S) and ammonia (NH 3 ), mechanical hazard associated to the equipment involved and biohazard due to methanogenic bacteria (Casson Moreno et al, 2016Moreno et al, , 2018Stolecka and Rusin, 2021;Trávníček et al, 2018Trávníček et al, , 2019. ...
With more than 350 GWh per year and thousands of installations around the world, biogas is an appealing strategy in the field of energy production and industrial waste optimization. In this sense, it is of paramount importance to address the risk associated with such plants, as an increasing trend of accidents have been recorded in the last 20 years. In this work, a representative biogas production plant was considered, and a risk assessment was carried out through the combination of Recursive Operability Analysis and Failure Mode and Effects Criticality Analysis. The methodology is rigorous and allows for both the identification and the quantification of accidental scenarios due to procedural errors and equipment failures, which miss in the literature for the case of biogas. The analysis allows the automatic generation of the Fault Trees for the identified Top Events, which can be numerically solved. Results show that the most critical accidental scenario in the biogas plant here considered is the formation of an explosive air-biogas mixture, which can occur in both anaerobic digester and condensate trap. The calculated probabilities agree with the results available in literature on similar plants. Pumps and Distributed Control System were found to be the most critical components.
... More than 800 accidents occurred after 2005 among 13,171 European biogas stations (Kotek et al. 2015). Casson et al., (2016) created a database of 169 biogas accidents and the study showed that almost 12% of the past accident analysed can be classified as major accidents. According to the geographical distribution of 169 accidents, 96% of the accidents happened in Europe (163 over 169), most of the events took place in Germany (76%), while a lower amount were documented in France (11%), Italy (6%), and UK (2%) (Casson et al., 2016). ...
... Casson et al., (2016) created a database of 169 biogas accidents and the study showed that almost 12% of the past accident analysed can be classified as major accidents. According to the geographical distribution of 169 accidents, 96% of the accidents happened in Europe (163 over 169), most of the events took place in Germany (76%), while a lower amount were documented in France (11%), Italy (6%), and UK (2%) (Casson et al., 2016). ...
... The biogas production plants are known to be responsible for several accidents (Moreno and Cozzani, 2015;Schroder et al., 2014;Sasso, 2012). The European Commission has assessed the regions of the world that primarily use bioenergy and considers biogas to be a highly flammable mixture (Casson et al., 2016;Trávníček et al., 2018). The role of safety regulations should be revised and improved since there is a need for the statistical investigation of accidents, consequence modelling and analysis of explosions (Kotek et al. 2015). ...
Biomass is one of the most important sources of renewable energy. Biomass resources can be utilized by producing biogas in the biogas stations, which include process equipment operating in critical conditions. In this study, a consequence analysis of a methane gas explosion carried out to estimate the explosion and the toxic threat zones of a biogas station in Turkey. ALOHA and PHAST Software Tools are used to realize an explosion by modelling scenarios and thus to estimate the effects of an explosion just to get an insight on methane gas explosion. By using ALOHA software, two different scenarios as leakage from the biogas tank and flammable chemical escaping directly into the atmosphere are designed and calculated by the Gaussian model. In addition to that, two different explosion scenarios as a leakage scenario from the biogas storage tank and a catastrophic rupture scenario are computed by using the PHAST Software. According to the first scenario results from ALOHA, explosions can cause destruction of buildings, serious injuries and shattering of glasses in the threat zones about 200 m while in the second scenario only shattering of glasses can be seen in 22 m of threat zone. The results from the PHAST show that threat zones do not change significantly at different weather conditions. It is found that the catastrophic rupture has maximum hazard zone limits among all the scenarios. It has been concluded that using different model-based software can be useful to understand possible results of biogas plant explosions.
... The bioprocess of biogas production from anaerobic digestion of livestock slurry was taken as a case study to demonstrate the proposed methodology. Safety issues of biogas production are addressed in [21] based on an analysis of past accidents. A database of accidents related to biogas supply was created and data on 169 accidents were collected from different literature sources. ...
... A rise in the number of biogas plants involves a higher number of accidents in the sector. The analyses conducted in [21,40] indicate that in the years 1994-2015 the number of accidents in the biogas sector totalled 169, 12% of which can be classed as serious. Of the total number, 163 accidents occurred in Europemostly in Germany, which is the leader on the European biogas market and has the highest number of biogas plants. ...
... The most common consequences of failures in biogas plants are fires and explosions. A classification of accidents in the biogas sector is presented in Fig. 3 [21,22,40]. The number of accidents in year 1999-2014 is presented in Fig. 4 [21]. ...
One effective method of clean energy generation is to use biogas. The biogas production technologies are now highly developed, especially at the level of local biogas plants. Unfortunately, it has been impossible to avoid in-service fatal accidents. Therefore, the design and construction of new technological installations intended for biogas large-scale production have to take account of the plant safe operation. In the first place, this applies to the course of industrial processes and to potential failures that may occur in them due to the flammability and toxicity of biogas constituents. This paper is focused on the hazards that biogas poses to human health and life. It presents the hazard zones arising due to possible scenarios following a release of biogas from a biogas plant. Probit functions and numerical modelling of the spread of thermal radiation due to a fire and of the toxic cloud arising therefrom are used to calculate the probability of serious injury to health and a loss of life depending on the distance from the gas release site. It is estimated that for a high-pressure tank containing 3000 m³ of biogas under the pressure of 10 MPa the life-threatening zone due to a potential fire of released gas has the range of about 30 m. There is about 10 m hazard zone related to the gas explosion, and the zone with the risk of poisoning due to the gas cloud toxic concentration has the range of about 20 m from the failure site.
... Explosion accidents from biogas industry are statistically analyzed (Boscolo et al., 2019;Casson et al., 2018;Trávníček et al., 2018). The European Commission has assessed the regions of the world that primarily use bioenergy and considers biogas to be a highly flammable mixture (Casson et al., 2016;Trávníček et al., 2018). Of the 57 accidents caused by bioenergy, 12 were caused by biogas. ...
... Up to now, there are a few studies on accident statistics (Casson et al., 2016;Trávníček et al., 2018) or accident investigations (Boscolo et al., 2019) of biogas explosions. Dupont and Accorsi (2006) found that the maximum rate of pressure rise (dP/dt) max of biogas composed of 50 % CH 4 and 50 % CO 2 at normal temperature was three times lower than that of pure CH 4 . ...
... With the increasing application of biogas, there are more and more safety problems (Boscolo et al., 2019;Casson et al., 2016;Trávníček et al., 2018). Moreover, biogas accidents are probably triggered in confined spaces such as municipal pipes, box culverts and storm drains (Ogle, 2017). ...
In order to evaluate the explosion characteristics of biogas (i.e., the mixture of CH4 and CO2), experiments were conducted in a duct with a length-to-width ratio of 10. The ignition was activated at the closed end while the opposite end was sealed by a PVC film of varying thickness. The effect of PVC film thickness and methane fraction in biogas was studied. The results show that there were three possible pressure peaks (Pb,Pmfa, Pext), due to the film failure, the attainment of maximum flame area and the external explosion, respectively. The pressure profile pattern was dependent on the combination of film thickness and methane fraction. Two pressure peaks Pb and Pmfa were observed for the PVC film thickness δ ≤ 0.033 mm. However, the pressure peak Pmfa was absent for the film thickness δ ≥ 0.055 mm because the PVC film did not rupture in these cases when the flame had touched the sidewall. In other words, the maximum flame area was achieved prior to the moment of venting. It signifies that in the absence of explosion venting, the flame quenching due to the sidewalls alone was insufficient to induce an individual pressure peak Pmfa. The third pressure peak Pext was low for the biogas explosion in the current configuration. The film thickness exerted a greater impact on bursting pressure Pb than did the methane fraction, at least for the range of film thicknesses and methane concentrations considered. Additionally, the individual effect of the film thickness or the methane fraction was less influenced by each other. The existing theories were accurate to predict the characteristic times of the flame propagation for δ = 0.011 mm but not for δ ≥ 0.033 mm. The PVC film thickness affected the explosion overpressure more, whereas the CH4 fraction in biogas affected the flame front velocity more remarkably.
... In this regard, Casson Moreno et al. [29] compiled a global database in 2016, listing 169 cases of reported accidents in biogas value chains between 1995 and 2014. An analysis of the geographical distribution of the cases shows that 96% of these accidents occurred within Europe and most of them in Germany. ...
... The instances described were predominantly associated with explosions, flares, biogas emissions from fermenters, and digestate spillages. Low risk awareness of plant managers and missing safety standards were identified as leading causes of accidents [29]. These findings are similar to those published in 2015 by the Umweltbundesamt. ...
... They may show overconfidence in their assessments, and their available data may not increase precision in their estimations [89,90]. As a consequence, experts can develop increased self-confidence when they believe that risks are under control [91], and they may ignore serious risks of accidents and possible negative environmental impacts [29,69,70,72]. ...
Background
When integrating power-to-gas (PtG) in the biogas sector (BGS), it is essential to consider how risk is perceived and handled since it influences technology uptake, acceptance, and legitimacy. In this study, we aimed to identify factors that determine how risks are managed in the BGS grounded on stakeholders’ perceptions of environmental and safety risks, and the socio-political, technological, and economic challenges associated with the adoption of PtG in this industry.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 experts located throughout Germany. They represented relevant institutions associated with the development of the BGS and PtG. Participants included expert stakeholders from science, industry, associations, and politics. The interview data were assessed by the use of thematic qualitative text analysis, followed by inductive reasoning, based on holistic and axial coding of the transcribed interviews.
Results
The participants predominantly trusted existing regulations to ascertain that environmental and safety risks from this energy concept are under control. The expert stakeholders were convinced that except for farm-based biogas facilities, there is adequate know-how in the BGS to appropriately manage risks of biogas and PtG technologies and thus prevent potential negative externalities. Furthermore, they were inclined to identify socio-political challenges, such as public criticism of biogas, and missing financial incentives as the most relevant matters to the development and adoption of PtG in this sector. The interviewees mainly identified politicians as responsible actors to handle identified risks and challenges. Such risk rationalities are characterized as hierarchist in the cultural theory of risk perception.
Conclusions
Possible reasons behind the prevailing high level of risk tolerance among the participants of this study could be related to (1) strong reliance on governmental action, technical protocols, and the perception that others are responsible for risk management in the BGS; (2) a high confidence in expertise in the biogas industry to control risks; and (3) the tendency of experts to advocate biogas and PtG, linked to possible professional roles and motivational factors. These aspects may influence them to attenuate the urgency to prevent accidents and environmental risks, even if this can have undesirable consequences when incorporating PtG in the biogas industry. While critical environmental and safety risks are not acknowledged and adequately tackled, societal controversies may accentuate to the disadvantage of the BGS and the potential benefits linked to the integration of PtG in this field. We recommend implementing measures that enhance risk awareness within this community, urge interest groups to adopt collaborative risk management strategies and consider the involvement of multiple stakeholders in risk assessment and control, and likewise, address the particularities of the social context in defining strategies for risk management and communication.
... Estudo realizado por Moreno et al. (2015) identificou 169 acidentes documentados ocorridos entre os anos de 1995 e 2014 envolvendo diferentes tipos de plantas de produção de biogás no mundo. Entre o período de 2007 e 2011, houve um aumento significativo no número de acidentes, sendo esse fato associado ao incremento na implantação de sistemas de aproveitamento de biogás. ...
... Fonte: Adaptado deMoreno et al. (2015). ...
... The number of biogas plants and the amount of production and use of biogas in large and industrial treatment plants for wastewater treatment and energy production have increased significantly. Previous studies have shown that many incidents have occurred in the case of biogas release in various industries [1,[3][4][5]. ...
... Thirty-nine percent of accidents were caused by accidental release and discharge of biogas. The most common consequences in power plants and biogas reservoirs have been fire and explosion [4,5], which shows the greater importance of these two consequences than toxic release and is consistent with the present study results. Examination of the probability of mortality due to a fireball in scenario no. 1 showed that in summer and winter, the highest probability of death occurs at intervals of 22.1 and 27.30 m from the reservoir (related to 37.5 kW m −2 radiation intensity area). ...
Purpose. The amount of biogas production in treatment plants for energy generation has increased in recent years. This study aimed to model the consequence of biogas release in a large urban treatment plant.
Materials and methods. The present study was conducted to model biogas storage tanks’ consequences in one of the large urban treatment plants in Iran. Due to the potential for this substance's harmfulness, all three consequences of toxic release, fire, and the explosion were evaluated. The scenarios were evaluated in the worst-case situation. All modeling steps were performed using PHAST 7.2.
Results. In the case of catastrophic rupture of the reservoir in the summer, distances of 3788.94, 128.86, and 91.72 meters from the reservoir in the direction of the wind will be placed in the range of 100, 500 and 1000 ppm of biogas, respectively. The study of pressure values due to explosion in the catastrophic rupture scenario revealed that distances of 57.19, 14.70, and 115.84 meters from the biogas reservoir were in the range of 0.02, 0.13, and 0.2 bar pressure increase, respectively.
Conclusion. Due to the treatment plant's location in a dense urban area, biogas’ dispersion could lead to many people's exposure to high-risk areas. Therefore, taking control measures comparable with the consequence modeling output can be a practical step towards reducing the vulnerability against such incidents.
... Unfortunately, fires and accidental explosions involving biogas could occur [8][9][10][11]. Therefore, a strict determination of the explosion parameters of biogas-air mixtures has a great practical interest for mitigation of incidents associated with gaseous explosions and for evaluating safe conditions of running reactors or plants where flammable mixtures are formed. ...
... Processes 2021,9, 996 ...
Currently, the use of fossil fuels is very high and existing nature reserves are rapidly depleted. Therefore, researchers are turning their attention to find renewable fuels that have a low impact on the environment, to replace these fossil fuels. Biogas is a low-cost alternative, sustainable, renewable fuel existing worldwide. It can be produced by decomposition of vegetation or waste products of human and animal biological activity. This process is performed by microorganisms (such as methanogens and sulfate-reducing bacteria) by anaerobic digestion. Biogas can serve as a basis for heat and electricity production used for domestic heating and cooking. It can be also used to feed internal combustion engines, gas turbines, fuel cells, or cogeneration systems. In this paper, a comprehensive literature study regarding the laminar burning velocity of biogas-containing mixtures is presented. This study aims to characterize the use of biogas as IC (internal combustion) engine fuel, and to develop efficient safety recommendations and to predict and reduce the risk of fires and accidental explosions caused by biogas.
... The increasing applications of biogas will introduce additional safety issues. 25,30,31 In addition, the typical phenomenon of combustion-induced rapid phase transition (CRPT) of a closed-vessel explosion can induce anomalous impulses in the pressure history in oxygen-enriched air. 25,31 Benedetto et al. 32,33 indicated that the CRPT can be mitigated by the presence of CO 2 . ...
... In real workplaces, biogas can be leaked into a confined space of large length-to-diameter ratios, such as tunnels, passageways, pipelines, silos, and mines, forming an explosion of any concentration of fuel−air mixtures within the explosion limits. 4,30 There is little knowledge about the flame propagation and pressure dynamics of biogas explosions in confined spaces that have a similar geometry of large length-towidth ratios. Furthermore, compared with freely propagating flames, the premixed flame will behave in a much more complicated manner when the flame propagates in a duct of large length-to-width ratio. ...
Mixing biogas with other fuels or increasing the oxygen fraction in the oxidizer can improve the combustion performance of biogas. In this study, we investigated the effects of propane addition and oxygen enrichment on the flame characteristics of biogas with a constant heating value in a half-open duct. The evolution of the flame structure revealed that the tulip structure took on two types of patterns at the oxygen fraction θ = 0.21. However, there was no salient tulip flame formation when θ > 0.21. Oxygen enrichment significantly increased the flame propagation velocity (V) and explosion pressure (P). Propane addition significantly reduced Vmax at θ = 0.25 and 0.29. The maximum rate of pressure rise [(dP/dt)max] exhibited a nonlinear dependence on the maximum flame velocity (Vmax). A similar trend was observed for the dependence of (dP/dt)max on the laminar burning velocity (LBV). Therefore, the LBV is an important parameter to predict Vmax and (dP/dt)max values of mixtures. Furthermore, by using the PREMIX code and the UC San Diego mechanism, we simulated laminar flame burning properties to reveal the macroscopic flame propagation characteristics. The rate of propane consumption was higher than the rate of methane consumption. Additionally, oxygen enrichment played an important role in the entire reaction process, leading to an increase in the molar concentrations of microscopic free radicals and a promotion of the rates of production (ROP) of free radicals. In contrast, the addition of propane decreased the molar concentrations of microscopic free radicals and inhibited the ROP of free radicals.
... Generally, bioprocesses are deeming to pose less risk compared to conventional chemical processes. However, several major accidents happened in this industry in recent years [2,[7][8]. Moreover, in some of the accident scenarios not identified in the risk assessment which may be considered as exceptional [9]. ...
... In a bioprocess facility, both biological hazards and conventional chemical hazards may be present. However, the holistic techniques for risk assessment in this industry are not available [7][8]. ...
Sustainable components of renewable biological resources in Malaysia provide the prospect for the growth of the bioeconomy via research, innovation and commercialisation. Malaysia is one of the few Asian countries that has most of its bio safety regulations and guidelines in place. In spite of the government is driving the sector in full force, there are still missing links and challenges. Some recent accidents involving the bioprocess raised concern on the safety of such technologies inclusive one incident happened in a bioprocess facility that has been selected as a case study. The facility selected is one of the Bioeconomy Transformation Programme (BTP) Trigger Projects in Malaysia. Holistic risk assessment is needed in order to identify and potential hazard related to bioprocess. With the usage of hazardous substances in the process, the approach towards risk assessment and accident prevention is crucial. Mechanical integrity and process safety related aspect is among the area need to be explored.
... Typical scenarios in industrial biotechnology (mainly in bioenergy industry) are obtained by further analysis of historical data, which can be a guide to traditional hazard identification, as follows [1,19,21,22]: Table 6 Checklist for hazards of the environment [11] What are the climatic conditions in the area? Has dispersion modeling data been compiled? ...
... In addition, Moreno conducted research on cause-consequence analysis (CCA) in bioenergy production to find the characteristics of accidents in bioenergy production [18,22,34]. For example, a fishbone diagram was proposed based on available data, providing a qualitative representation of direct causes, as shown in Fig. 7 (accident) is shown as the fish's head, facing to the right, with the causes extending to the left as a fishbone; five ribs branch off the backbone for major causes, with sub-branches for root-causes. ...
Risk assessment has been used extensively as the main approach to prevent accidents in the chemical and process industry. Industrial biotechnology has many of the same hazards as chemical technology, but also encounters biological hazards related to biological agents. Employees in the biotechnology industry are susceptible to health risks because of different types of exposure to harmful agents. The external environment may also be affected by these agents in cases of accidental release. This chapter first presents several traditional risk assessment methods that may be used in industrial biotechnology after comparing differences between industrial biotechnology and chemical technology. Hazard identification in industrial biotechnology is then discussed, for biological as well as traditional hazards. Furthermore, risk assessment of occupational health and safety related to biological hazards is examined using exposure analysis and risk characterization. A two-stage risk assessment method is recommended to assess environmental and ecological risks in industrial biotechnology. Risk analysis of traditional accidents (fire, explosions, and toxic releases) in industrial biotechnology is also described.
... Although different catalytic systems were well developed for GVL production, few research has been focused on thermal hazards of this reaction, which made the process safety design far behind for its further industrial applications. In fact, from a larger perspective in bioenergy, major accidents are increasing in the recent years and faster than bioenergy production, indicating the importance of risk awareness in this field (Casson Moreno and Cozzani, 2015;Casson Moreno et al., 2016). As the hydrogenation reaction is strong exothermic and always accompanies with high pressure, the safety issue such as the reaction thermal runaway risk is extremely urgent to be investigated for comprehensive process design of the desired reaction systems (Emerson et al., 2019;Jiang et al., 2018;Shen et al., 2018;Stoessel, 1993Stoessel, , 2008West and Newman, 2002). ...
Aiming at the green and sustainable energy substitution and supply, biomass valorization has become a potential strategy to face the energy crisis and increasing demand all over the world from long-term perspectives. Among the bio-based chemicals, γ-valerolactone (GVL) production from hydrogenation of levulinic acid (LA) and its esters has attracted great interests due to its wide applications, such as fuel, solvent, and additives. However, the safety evaluation for this hydrogenation reaction has received few attentions. To fill this gap, thermal hazard evaluation for GVL production from LA hydrogenation by using formic acid (FA) as hydrogen donor was first performed. The process conditions were optimized by using orthogonal experimental method for further calorimetry study. Thermal stability of chemicals and thermal risk of reaction process under adiabatic conditions were investigated by applying differential scanning calorimetry and accelerating rate calorimeter Phi-Tec II, respectively. The results revealed that the chemicals were stable in temperature range from 30 to 250 °C except FA due to its evaporation and decomposition with endothermic behaviors. The reaction process under isothermal and adiabatic conditions demonstrates that the decomposition of FA was rapid and followed by the hydrogenation of LA to GVL. Based on kinetic model under adiabatic conditions and risk matrix, the thermal runaway risk was found to be medium, indicating that certain safety measures should be properly designed and taken for loss prevention. This work could benefit the safety design and thermal risk prevention for GVL production by using FA as hydrogen donor.
... As these fields are 'newer' compared to the chemical domain, this can give rise to uncertain risks. For example, unexpected operating conditions during bio-energy production causing the release of hazardous substances (Casson Moreno et al., 2016), or the possibly accidental release and spread of synthetic cells and carriers (Knapland & Knaplund, 2011;Maurer et al., 2006;Regårdh, 2011;Schmidt et al., 2011). However, uncertain risks are not solely limited to 'new' domains of engineering, but can also still arise in the domain of chemical engineering, e.g., pesticides or PFOA (Domingo & Nadal, 2019). ...
The current regulatory regime regarding GMOs within the Netherlands and Europe does ensure safety but struggles in balancing this notion with innovation. In particular, the way the Precautionary Principle (PP) is operationalized in GMO legislation has resulted in a highly precautionary culture in which there is little room to conduct research with associated uncertain risks or uncertainties – it has resulted in a culture of compliance. Although the debate on how ‘new’ genetic engineering techniques such as CRISPR should be assessed in comparison to recently exempted techniques is ongoing within the European Union (EU), this might not have any consequences for GMO regulation at all. These issues do not only stifle innovation but also illustrate that the current regime is not resilient in dealing with emerging techniques. To break free from the impasse between safety and innovation, researchers should be able to learn what uncertain risks entail, for instance, through Safe-by-Design (SbD).
The main question addressed in this thesis is: “How to create an environment that is suitable to learn safely and responsibly what uncertain risks associated with emerging biotechnologies entail?”. I conclude that to enable responsible learning by means of SbD, 3 conditions are needed; regulatory flexibility, co-responsibility and awareness. Thereby, SbD could be a suitable approach to arrive at responsible learning, given that the 3 conditions are met. If not, SbD provides guidelines to lower or mitigate known risks but fails to provide a step-by-step approach to gradually learn what uncertain risks entail. This will leave a knowledge gap between known and uncertain risks which stifles innovation and hinders risk management in ensuring future safety for people, animals and the environment.
... The explosion severity will increase significantly at elevated oxygen contents (Mitu et al., 2019). Furthermore, biogas is often accompanied by the risk of leakage and explosion during the industrial production, pipeline transportation and domestic applications (Casson et al., 2016). Biogas accidents probably arise in large aspect ratio confined spaces such as transport pipelines, sewer lines, coal mine roadways and storm drains (Dou et al., 2020;Wang et al., 2022;Zhu et al., 2020). ...
To demonstrate the effect of propane co-firing on the explosion characteristics of the oxygen-enriched biogas, deflagration experiments were conducted in a semi-open duct. The results show that the tulip flame transforms from an existence to a disappearance with increasing oxygen fraction. The increasing brightness of the flame indicates that the increase in oxygen fraction can enhance the explosion strength and accelerate flame propagation. A clear backward motion of the burnt gas is clearly distinguished in the direct imaging of flame propagations. The propane effect is discernible when the flame evolves in a dynamic manner shortly after the flame skirt is in touch with the sidewalls. Moreover, the oxygen fraction impacts the extent of this dynamic feature and thus the magnitude of the propane effect. The laminar burning velocity SL can be singled out to forecast the flame propagation speed. The propane effect on SL and [H+OH+O]max gradually strengthens with increasing oxygen enrichment. [H+OH+O]max is well related to the fundamental properties of the mixture, such as SL, the expansion ratio, initial temperature and flame thickness, which in turn dominate flame propagations in the duct.
... Failing to provide sufficient information, providing of misinformation, concealing of the key aspects of the project and its expectable impacts on the community, may lead to the increase of the opposition against the realisation of the project and the public to avoid progress to the construction phase [18,32]. The lessons learnt show that even if such a controversial project was realised and started operation despite the critical public attitude, a level of public trust in the AD plant operator remained low and significantly impacted further development of the project and general perception of the whole biogas energy sector [39]. ...
Anaerobic digestion (AD) plants fed by agricultural biowastes are highly relevant renewable energy producers supporting the transition towards sustainable waste management. However, local support for the operation of individual AD plants seems to be highly diverse, case specific and generally insufficient. Following this challenge visible especially in Central and Eastern Europe, our research aims to detect and explain commonalities and discordances in the perception of AD plants in their host communities in Slovakia. Three types of rural communities in the western part of the country were selected for a set of comparative surveys as the illustrative case studies. We have selected: (i) the community where planning, building, and operation of AD plant did not cause any significant issues, (ii) the community, where significant controversies around operating AD plant occurred, and (iii) the community, where the AD plant project was stopped during the planning phase due to community resistance. We ascertained that in all three types of host communities, respondents claimed that AD plants worsen the local quality of life. In communities with the issues-free planning and operation of AD plants or where the project was stopped, the attitudes towards AD plants are rather constant. However, if community experienced issues with the AD plant operation, the overall support for biogas energy significantly worsened. Interestingly, a positive local experience with biogas supports further development of AD plants, however, only if these are located out of the host communities. Thus our findings enrich knowledge about the NIMBY effect with an Eastern European perspective.
... As these fields are 'newer' compared to the chemical domain, this can give rise to uncertain risks. For example, unexpected operating conditions during bio-energy production causing the release of hazardous substances [38], or the possibly accidental release and spread of synthetic cells and carriers [39][40][41][42]. However, uncertain risks are not solely limited to 'new' domains of engineering, but can also still arise in the domain of chemical engineering, e.g., pesticides or PFOA [43]. ...
Although both the Inherent Safety Principles (ISPs) and the Safe-by-Design (SbD) approach revolve around the central value of safety, they have a slightly different focus in terms of developing add-on features or considering initial design choices. This paper examines the differences between these approaches and analyses which approach is more suitable for a specific type of research—fundamental or applied. By applying the ISPs and SbD to a case study focusing on miniaturized processes using Hydrogen Cyanide, we find that both approaches encounter internal value-conflicts and suffer from external barriers, or lock-ins, which hinder implementation of safety measures. By applying the Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs), we gain insight in the matureness of a technology (thereby distinguishing fundamental and applied research) and the extent of lock-ins being present. We conclude that the ISPs are better able to deal with lock-ins, which are more common in applied research stages, as this approach provides guidelines for add-on safety measures. Fundamental research is not subject to lock-ins yet, and therefore SbD would be a more suitable approach. Lastly, application of either approach should not be associated with a specific field of interest, but instead with associated known or uncertain risks.
... In this context, most of the studies carried out until now are focused on: analyses devoted to identification and prioritisation of the risk; the development of tools to support proactive and reactive risk management [6]; or, after an event occurs and the situation is stable, how to perform a study on what occurred and how to determine the extent of damage [7]. Learning from past events is considered a suitable way to learn to handle an emergency [8]. However, this approach may not always be effective because a chain of events can manifest in ways different from what has already happened. ...
Emergency response plans to mitigate the severity of the accidental release of hazardous compounds in the air have become a primary concern in view of the many adverse events occurred over the years in high-risk plants. To do this, an accurate estimate of forecast meteorological data to be used in dispersion models can be very useful to respond in advance to emergency situations. In this field, FORCALM is a new tool developed to elaborate European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts data on a 3D computational domain with a high-resolution grid. FORCALM data can be used to perform predictive simulations of impacts on local and regional levels by using CALPUFF modelling system. A case study relevant to an accident, occurred in the “Mediterranea” Refinery at Milazzo (Italy) in 2014, has been also examined for validation purposes. A comparison with results obtained by using CALMET modelling system and observed meteorological data, covering the area under study, is also described. The validation work has allowed confirming that predictive assessments, carried out with the help of FORCALM, lead to information regarding potential environmental impacts with a good degree of accuracy.
... Along with many other European and American sources, eMARS is used in Moreno et al. (2018) to develop a database of 300 security-related accidents in chemical and process infrastructures. It is also employed to highlight many other issues associated to different kinds of risks and features, including, domino effects (Abdolhamidzadeh et al., 2011), naturaltechnological (Natech) risks (Di Franco and Salvatori, 2015), involvement of contractors (Abdul Majid et al., 2015), biogas production (Moreno et al., 2016), and accidents in ports (Lecue and Darbra, 2019). ...
A new dimension of learning lessons from the occurrence of hazardous events involving dangerous substances is considered relying on the availability of representative data and the significant evolution of a wide range of machine learning tools. The importance of such a dimension lies in the possibility of predicting the associated nature of damages without imposing any unrealistic simplifications or restrictions. To provide the best possible modeling framework, several implementations are tested using logistic regression, decision trees, neural networks, support vector machine, naive Bayes classifier and random forests to forecast the occurrence of the human, environmental and material consequences of industrial accidents based on the EU Major Accident Reporting System's records. Many performance metrics are estimated to select the most suitable model in each treated case. The obtained results show the distinctive ability of random forests and neural networks to predict the occurrence of specific consequences of accidents in the industrial installations, with an obvious exception concerning the performance of this latter algorithm when the involved datasets are highly unbalanced.
... La base de données ARIA peut être considérée comme robuste car c'est l'une des principales bases de données européennes disponible sur les accidents technologiques avec FACTS et MIHDAS (INERIS, 2016). ARIA a également été exploitée dans plusieurs études scientifiques pour décrire différents accidents technologiques (Casson Moreno et al., 2016;Casson Moreno and Cozzani, 2015;Cozzani et al., 2010;Dakkoune et al., 2018b;Hemmatian et al., 2014;Kirchsteiger, 1999;Okoh and Haugen, 2014;Ramírez-Camacho et al., 2017;Renni et al., 2010;Tauseef et al., 2011;Trávníček et al., 2018 1974-1979 1980-1985 1986-1991 1992-1997 1998-2003 2004-2009 Il convient de noter que les deux termes rejet et fuite ont été séparés dans cette étude. En fait, le terme "rejet" définit une "libération " par un moyen prévu à cet effet, tel qu'une cheminée, un tuyau, etc., sans se rompre. ...
L’histoire des événements accidentels dans les industries chimiques montre que leurs conséquences sont souvent graves sur les plans humain, environnemental et économique. Cette thèse vise à proposer une approche de détection et de diagnostic des défauts dans les procédés chimiques afin de prévenir ces événements accidentels. La démarche commence par une étude préalable qui sert à identifier les causes majeures responsables des événements industriels chimiques en se basant sur le retour d’expérience (REX). En France, selon la base de données ARIA, 25% des évènements sont dus à l’emballement thermique à cause d’erreurs d’origine humaine. Il est donc opportun de développer une méthode de détection et de diagnostic précoce des défauts dus à l’emballement thermique. Pour cela nous développons une approche qui utilise des seuils dynamiques pour la détection et la collecte de mesures pour le diagnostic. La localisation des défauts est basée sur une classification des caractéristiques statistiques de la température en fonction de plusieurs modes défectueux. Un ensemble de classificateurs linéaires et de diagrammes de décision binaires indexés par rapport au temps sont utilisés. Enfin, la synthèse de l'acide peroxyformique dans un réacteur discontinu et semi-continu est considérée pour valider la méthode proposée par des simulations numériques et ensuite expérimentales. Les performances de détection de défauts se sont révélées satisfaisantes et les classificateurs ont démontré un taux de séparabilité des défauts élevés.
... Loureiro et al. (2015) applied CA to explore the relationship between the literature stream of strategies and supply chain management. Moreno et al. (2016) used CA to establish the correlation between the causes of hazards and consequences in biogas production. Oliva et al. (2016) examined the relationship between agents and event for enterprise RM by CA. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to develop a decision support system (DSS) to assist supply chain (SC) risk managers to select a suitable risk management (RM) strategy and expedite the implementation of corresponding RM enablers. The relationship between RM strategies and RM enablers is explored by identifying the underlying factors between them, which is further used to build the DSS.
Design/methodology/approach
The DSS is built by integrating heterogeneous techniques. A systematic review approach is employed to explore both proactive and reactive RM enablers, and they are further mapped to various RM strategies by using c orrespondence analysis (CA). An in-depth interview is conducted to develop the rules for constructing the decision system. A rule-based fuzzy inference system (FIS) is utilized to counteract the uncertainty involved in the decision variables. The efficacy of the proposed DSS is demonstrated by considering two conjectural scenarios in the case of Indian petroleum SC (IPSC).
Findings
The results reveal three primary underlying factors between the risk mitigation strategies viz. SC managers' preparedness to face risk, organization's resource capability to deal with risk and the sophistication of the implementation of the RM enablers; with explained variances of 37%, 29% and 22%, respectively. Risk avoidance strategy comprises of RM enablers such as supplier evaluation, technology adaption, information security, etc. Whereas, the risk-sharing strategy includes revenue sharing, insurance, collaboration, public-private-partnership, etc. as essential RM enablers. The DSS recommends risk-mitigation and risk-sharing as effective RM strategies for the IPSC under the considered scenarios.
Research limitations/implications
This paper develops a decision support framework for recommending an effective risk mitigation strategy and outranking the corresponding enablers. The study explicitly focuses on the risk mitigation step of the supply chain risk management (SCRM) process. Pre- and post-risk mitigation steps of the SCRM process, such as risk assessment and risk monitoring are beyond the scope of this research.
Originality/value
The operational procedure of the proposed DSS is explained by considering a real-life case of petroleum SC in the Indian scenario. The unique contributions of this study are presented as theoretical implications and managerial propositions in the context of a developing country.
... Consequently, biogas technology may pose a threat of accident [53]. Moreno et al. clearly showed a higher increase in accidents at biogas facilities than the increase in energy production from biogas stations [54]. A set of safety barriers for accident prevention and mitigation in biogas production and upgrading facilities have been identified by researchers [55]. ...
... Loureiro et al. (2015) applied CA to explore the relationship between the literature stream of strategies and SC network management. Moreno et al. (2016) used CA to establish the correlation between the causes of hazards and consequences in biogas production. Ruth et al. (2018) analyzed the similarity (and difference) of various fraud vulnerabilities along different food SC by CA. ...
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between various risk management strategies and risk management practices in order to design and hence enact a suitable supply chain risk mitigation (RM) plan. Additionally, this study proposes a hierarchical framework to explain the mutual relationship between supply chain risk management (SCRM) practices and strategies by considering the underlying dimensions between them.
Design/methodology/approach
An amalgamation of systematic literature analysis (SLA) and correspondence analysis (CA) has been performed to develop the conceptual framework. A real-life case of Indian petroleum supply chain has been considered to validate and explain the proposed model.
Findings
The results reveal three underlying dimensions, which associate the relationship between RM strategies. They are, risk adaptability of SC managers with a variance of 34.71% , followed by resource capability of the firm and the degree of sophistication of RM practices, with variances of 27.72 and 20.35% , respectively. Risk avoidance strategy comprises of practices such as supplier evaluation, technology adaption, flexible process and information security . On the other extreme, the risk sharing strategy includes revenue sharing, insurance, collaboration, public–private partnership and so on as essential RM practices.
Research limitations/implications
The study not only focuses on the distinction between RM strategies and practices, which were used interchangeably in the prior literature, but also provides an association between the same by exploring the underlying dimensions. These underlying dimensions perform a crucial role while developing a risk management plan. This study explicitly focuses on the RM step of SCRM process. Pre and post risk mitigation phases of SCRM process, such as risk assessment and risk monitoring, are beyond the scope of the current research.
Originality/value
The paper develops a framework for mapping various RM strategies with their corresponding practices by considering the Indian petroleum supply chain as a viable case study. Various theoretical and business implications are derived in the context of the developing country.
... Number of external and internal factors leads biogas plant failure which reduces the usage of biogas plant. Underfeeding of feedstock, wrong ratio water and input feedstock, temperature of the digester changes based on climate, poor maintenance and shortage of water are the primary factors mitigate the performance of biogas plant [3]. One of the reasons for the low use of biogas technology in dry and drought-prone areas is a large amount of water required for the proper functioning of biogas plants [4]. ...
Due to the shortage of petroleum products, Biogas becomes the most important renewable energy resource which can be generated without destroying the nature. However, Biogas production in India is 2.07 billion m3 which is very low, compare to the available potential. Biogas plants fail frequently because of the wrong ratio of input feedstock and water, poor maintenance and human error. To address these issues, the proposed system uses IoT, cloud and machine learning to improve the performance and reduces the number of failures in the biogas plant. Support Vector Machine (SVM) learning is applied to maximize the output of biogas plant. Result shows that Biogas production is increased 15 percent more compare to the traditional biogas plant and improved the life time of the biogas plant.
... The European commission reviewed the major bioenergy regions in the world. Biogas is classified as a highly flammable mixture of gases [7,8]. Among 57 bioenergy accidents, 12 accidents in which 75% is in form of explosion were caused by biogas, accounting for 21% [9]. ...
Hydrogen addition into biogas can improve the combustion performance. However, hydrogen addition will also pose higher explosion severity. In order to study the influence of hydrogen addition on the biogas explosion, the deflagration characteristics of premixed hydrogen/biogas/air mixtures with the unity equivalence ratio were evaluated in a 10 L transparent duct. The hydrogen fractionλH2in the blended fuel and the methane fraction in biogas θCH4were varied 0.1–0.6 and 0.4–1.0, respectively. The results show that when the mixture was less reactive, the low flame velocity facilitated the flame front deformation, leading to the more salient tulip flames. The profiles of the reduced flame velocity V/ESL (i.e., laminar burning velocity SL and expansion ratio E) could be divided into three patterns, depending on the combination of λH2 and θCH4. As the reactivity of the mixture increased, the flame velocity profile would shift from the first pattern to the second pattern then to the third one. However, the V/ESL was linearly scaled with the flame position Ztip irrespective of the biogas composition before the flame touched the sidewall, indicating that the effect of flame instability and acoustic wave on flame propagation was insignificant. The explosion parameters (e.g., the maximum flame velocity Vm and the maximum overpressure Pm) were more sensitive to the hydrogen fraction than to the methane fraction. In addition, hydrogen addition was more effective in augmenting the explosion parameters for biogas with low methane fraction. For a fixed methane fraction, the Vm and Pm showed the linearly dependence on the hydrogen fraction defined by Yu et al. (Yu and Law 1986). Moreover, the increasing hydrogen fraction would gradually moderate the effect of the methane fraction in biogas on the explosion parameters. There was a good linear nexus between the Pm and the Vm irrespective of the composition of the mixtures. The Vm was well scaled with the ESL or the maximum H radical [H]max in the reaction zone of laminar flame. Therefore, the (ESL) and [H]max provide the good indicators to predict the explosion parameters of the hydrogen/biogas fuel.
... Unfortunately, the number of serious accidents in these facilities has also increased. [1][2][3] Notwithstanding a rich literature on risk assessment and prevention in this sector, risk identification and analysis is still matter of research. According to Reference 4 , risks in biogas plants may be due to several reasons, such as leakages in storage tanks and distribution networks, accidental effluent discharges, sewage system overflow due to control failures or exceptional downpours, dangerous substance in the biogas raw materials, and so on. ...
Biogas is a versatile carrier of renewable energy produced by means of the digestion of crops, residues, or other wastes, and storage of the gas in dedicated plants. Safety regulations impose operational and technical restrictions to areas interested by the presence of the biogas in order to limit the explosion risk. Conversely, other areas of the plant are not subject to strict safety requirements. Nevertheless, explosions can be triggered in these areas as well, as the present investigation confirms. In the specific case, the production of biogas by anaerobic digestion in a storm‐water tank and its infiltration and accumulation into a technical building through a pipe connection caused the explosion of the building itself. The authors describe the procedures adopted for the enquiry and suggest possible improvements to the safety regulations for biogas plants.
... Examples of accidents occurred including fire, explosion and release of raw biogas from the digester. Accidents leading to asphyxiation caused by access in confined space also have been reported (Moreno, Papasidero, Scarponi, Guglielmi, & Cozzani, 2015). ...
Objective: A cross-sectional study was carried out on the respiratory effects of biogas plant environment exposure in palm oil mills. The aim of this study was to determine whether respiratory health effects were more common among workers in the biogas plant environment. Methods: Workers from 19 palm oil mills in Sabah with biogas plants were compared between the exposed and unexposed of the biogas plant environment. The workers were assessed with a questionnaire, physical examination, spirometry and oximetry tests. Then, the data obtained were analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 22. Result: Pearson Chi-square analysis (p =0.019, x 2 =5.51) showed there was a significant relationship between the biogas plant environment exposure and lung function test (LFT) with risk estimates (OR = 1.96, 95% CI 1.12, 3.45). The exposed group showed a higher proportion of abnormal lung function test in comparison with the unexposed group. Conclusion: In conclusion, workers in biogas plants environment have two times higher odds of having abnormal lung function test. Thus, the findings from this study can be used in future planning by execution the optimal control measures as efforts to reduce the risk of respiratory-related disease in the biogas plant environment.
... For example, Santella et al. [26] state that hurricanes in the US territory cause an average of 5.6 leaks of different ranges of hazardous chemicals per 100 facilities (hurricanes of category 1-2 according to the Safir-Simpson scale); in the case of category 3 hurricanes, it is 18.2 leaks per 100 facilities. In addition, the author Moreno [27], without further details, reported that during the period 1995-2014, there were 66 events (whereas the authors' database has a total of 19 events of this type) when biogas from biogas technology leaked into the atmosphere. Some of these were probably influenced by high-speed winds. ...
Biogas plants are a specific facility from the QRA (Quantitative Risk Assessment) methodologies' point of view, especially in the case of the determination of the event frequency of accident scenarios for biogas leakage from a gas holder and subsequent initiation. QRA methodologies determine event frequencies for different types of accident events related to vessels made of steel. Gas holders installed at biogas plants are predominantly made of other materials and are often integrated with the fermenter. It is therefore a specific type of gas holder, differing from that which is commonly used in the chemical industry. In addition, long-term experience is not available for the operation of biogas plants, unlike in the chemical industry. The event frequencies listed in the QRA methodologies are not relevant for the risk assessment of biogas plants. This work is focused on setting the prerequisites for QRA of biogas storage, including for example: information on hazardous chemical substances occurring at biogas plants, their classification, and information on the construction of integrated gas holders. For the purpose of the work, a scenario was applied where the greatest damage (to life or property) is expected. This scenario is the leakage of the total volume of hazardous gas substance from the gas holder and subsequent initiation. Based on this information, a "tree" was processed for "Fault Tree Analysis" (FTA), and frequencies were estimated for each event. Thereafter, an "Event Tree Analysis" was carried out. This work follows up on a discussion by experts on the determination of scenario frequencies for biogas plants that was conducted in the past.
... Biogas can be used as an alternative energy resource. The European Union is leading the market for biogas production with more than 13,800 biogas plants in operation and the total installed biogas electricity capacity reached 10.4 GW in 2015 [1,2]. The installed capacity in China was 300 MW in 2010 and it is expected to reach 500 MW by 2020. ...
... That is, the basic events were found by Boolean algebra simplified calculation to obtain the minimal path sets, minimal cut sets (MCSs) of fault tree and the structure importance coefficient of each basic event. To reduce the probability of an accident, we could apply the consequence of analysis to take more preventive and control measures [20][21][22][23]. ...
To prevent and mitigate chemical risks in the petrochemical industry, such as fires and spillage, process safety management (PSM), is essential, especially where flammable, corrosive, explosive, toxic, or otherwise dangerous chemicals are used. We investigated process safety (PS) between man–machine (material equipment) and environmental interfaces by using process hazard analysis (PHA) and fault tree analysis (FTA). By analyzing the data obtained through machinery and mechanical integrity (MI), pre-startup safety review (PSSR), current operating modes, and areal locations of hazardous atmospheres (ALOHA) simulations of the disaster’s aftermath, the cause of the styrene plant accident was found to be the fuel furnace (F101) switching process. Although the furnace had been extinguished, fuel continued to enter the furnace, and it was exposed to a high-temperature surface, resulting in the flashing ignition of the C4 fuel. The plan-do-check-act (PDCA) management model can be used to forestall the system from accident, and it is used to improve the proposal and develop countermeasures that would increase PSM performance and substantially lessen the impact of the thermal hazard. Disasters are often attributable to the unsafe state of machinery, equipment, or the environment, dangerous behaviors of the operator, and the lack of a thorough management system. It is anticipated that the investigation and analysis of the accident would not only find the real cause of the disaster but also lead to the establishment of better effective solutions for common safety problems.
... Such analyses encompass various forms, for example, root cause analysis, fishbone diagram and others. These tools or methods have gained popularity and proved to be useful in the safety analysis of Biogas production [20] and safety of electric transformers [21]. ...
Since the invention of the steam engine, many engineering innovations have propelled the human civilization forward and the society has changed dramatically. At the same time, accidents of various kinds (e.g. car, rail, aircraft, ships, industrial, etc.) have never stopped taking place. Hence, for any engineering and socio-technical system, safety has become one of the most important concerns in modern society. In order to understand the science of accidents, some notable accident theories and models were reviewed in this paper and their relative merits and demerits were discussed as well. The study finds that accident models and theories are diversified and different from each other. Therefore, the science behind accident cannot be unified into a single discipline. Also, changes in human civilization over the years have given birth to new modes of accidents (such as automobile, aircraft, spacecraft and etc.). This study, thus, searches the unified science of accidents and therefore, discusses the newly developed accident analysis technique called the Logic Programming Technique (LPT). It is expected that this new domain of safety engineering may contribute to achieving safety in the future automobile industry.
... Explosion was noticed as the most frequent accident scenario for fixed installations. This analysis has also been studied for specific industries, i.e., hydrogen [46,100], refinery [52], biogas [50], petrochemical [43][44][45], biodiesel [47], and ethanol industries [48]. The results of frequent accident event analyses for the first four of the mentioned industries are summarized in Figs. 8 a-d. ...
Risk assessment is the tool for maintaining perfect safety management system and aiding sustainable process designing, with hazard identification as the critical step. This step can be executed by Past Accidents Analysis (PAA) to achieve the mentioned objectives. Despite of available analysis, the recurring of accidents have identified the shortcomings in PAA, and requires a detailed analysis, exhibited in this paper. The intensified exploration of accidents information will strengthen both the safety management system at existing facilities and process designing in terms of sustainability.
Sewage treatment plants (STPs) with anaerobic systems, especially those with UASB reactors, have been widely used in Brazil. One of the main advantages of these systems is the biogas production, a byproduct with great energy potential because it contains methane in its composition. As a flammable gas, methane at certain concentrations of mixture with atmospheric air can form an explosive gas mixture. The identification of the main sources of risk of biogas release and also the availability of ventilation over these sources are fundamental for the classification of areas of the STPs in risk zones, and, consequently, to guide the necessary procedures to keep them safe. Thus, this technical note presents the main requirements for surveying risks associated with explosions and classification of explosive atmospheres in STPs with biogas production.
Process safety in the storage and processing of agricultural products is an important aspect related not only to reducing the risk of damage to the human health or property, but is also strategical to national food safety. A special emphasis must therefore be placed on risk assessment of the operation of these facilities. One of the cornerstones of the risk assessment process is the use of knowledge of past accidents. As the agricultural industry is rather marginal in the field of safety engineering compared to other sectors of the economy, available publications dealing with this topic are rather an exception. The aim of this paper is to conduct research on the available information on accidents that have occurred in agricultural processing and storage facilities in the past. The purpose is to provide professionals and operators with a comprehensive source of information useful for activities related to the prevention of these accidents. The output of the work is then a previously unrealised representative database of systematically sorted information on accidents that have occurred in the process of treatment or storage of agricultural products. This information was subsequently analysed and evaluated. The created database consists of 195 records of accidents that occurred between 1989 and 2018. To create a unique representative database, mainly publicly available databases of industrial accidents or professional publications were used. The author's database contains information on accident locations, accident causes and accident prevention measures. A total of 21 persons died and 32 persons were injured during the accidents. The analysis shows that fires are the most frequent manifestation of accidents (86%) and accidents in material handling facilities are the most frequent (33%). According to the information available in the database, organisational factors were identified as the most frequent causative factors of accidents (47%). For a better understanding of the accident process, a description of selected accident scenarios was also provided in the work. A linear model was used for this purpose. Due to the strategic importance of the evaluated facilities for processing and storage of agricultural products, efforts are made to prevent accidents from recurring or to reduce their impact on the surrounding area. Therefore, an integral part of the work is the description of possible measures against the recurrence of similar accidents.
O biogás tornou-se uma opção eficiente para geração de energia e é ambientalmente adequado para o destino de matéria orgânica. A geração do biogás contribui na redução das emissões de gases de efeito estufa e pode ser usado para geração de energia na forma de calor, eletricidade, entre outras possibilidades. Embora exista grande quantidade de matérias-primas disponíveis, o uso dessa fonte de energia ainda é muito pequeno e desafiador. Usinas de biogás são economicamente e socialmente ligadas a questões regionais. Portanto, o desenvolvimento de uma cadeia relacionada com o biogás impulsionará não só geração de energia, mas emprego e renda, criando um ciclo de valor agregado. A operação a longo prazo de usinas de biogás contempla requisitos financeiros, questões técnicas e desenvolvimentos relevantes para a produção de energia. O tipo de matéria-prima, o seu pré-tratamento, o sistema de controle, o equipamento técnico e a utilização do biogás, são aspectos fundamentais para o sucesso na operação das usinas de biogás. A evolução do setor de biogás não diz respeito apenas aos produtores, sendo necessária uma estrutura legal, infraestrutura, e de uma cadeia completa de operadores, consumidores, recursos humanos e tecnológicos.
Pollutants are released into the atmosphere due to production and consumption energy especially from fossil. However, not only the environmental concerns but also the increase in energy demand promotes the researchers to develop new and current energy alternatives that cause zero-or low-negative environmental impact. Anaerobic fermentation can be used for the treatment of organic wastes (OW) such as kitchen waste, municipal solid waste, industrial organic waste, animal manure, and agricultural residues. The fuel produced from anaerobic digestion is environmental friendly. Kitchen wastes (KWs) are easily biodegradable organic material with high moisture, carbohydrate, lipid, and protein. The use of KW only in anaerobic digestion reduces the activity of methanogenic bacteria as a result of rapid accumulation of volatile fatty acids followed by a pH drop in the reactor, thus, adjusting C/N by some additives to accelerate the growth of methanogens and methane formation is necessary. The favorable pH for methanogens' growth range of 6.5 to 7.2. Furthermore, the key factors controlling the production of volatile fatty acids during fermentation for methanogenesis represented in pH, temperature, C/N ratio, and hydraulic retention time.
The presence of sulfur-based substances in the biogas (sour) produced from the digestion plant imposes several treatments to match the market and regulation requirements. Besides, it lays the production plants open to safety and environmental risks related to the accidental release of toxic species. This work is devoted to the investigation of the consequences of the accidental release of biogas containing hydrogen sulfide up to 10 %vol. To this aim, a schematic 3-D representation of a biogas productive plant was developed and implemented in a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. The effects of the initial composition and the wind velocity on the cloud dispersion were evaluated. The calculated stand-off distances for lethality resulted from the numerical simulation were compared with the results of standard integral models commonly adopted in the process industry.
Results indicated the dramatic effects of the toxicity of hydrogen sulfide on the downwind safety distance in the case of accidental release of sour biogas, and the negligible effects for the flammability concerns.
The use of lignocellulosic biomass as a raw material can sustain the chemical industry. There is a lack of knowledge in kinetics and thermodynamics of some of these processes, making difficult the cost analysis. For instance, the thermodynamic investigation of the hydrogenation of alkyl levulinates to γ-valerolactone (GVL) is seldom. This system is a two-step reaction comprising a hydrogenation and cyclization step. The experimental measurement of the two reaction enthalpies is challenging, and a method was developed in this manuscript. The hydrogenation of methyl levulinate (ML) and butyl levulinate (BL) in the GVL solvent was found to be an exothermic step, and the cyclization an endothermic one. The reaction enthalpy for the hydrogenation of ML in the GVL solvent, calculated to -53.25 kJ/mol, is higher than the one of BL in the GVL solvent, calculated to -38.66 kJ/mol. The reaction enthalpies for the cyclization step are similar for ML and BL system, i.e., +7.00 kJ/mol and +6.50 kJ/mol, respectively. Hence, the hydrogenation step governs the reaction temperature. A thermal risk assessment based on experiments performed under adiabatic condition was done. The thermal risk was found to be medium for this reaction system under the operating conditions used in this study.
The anaerobic reactor is one of the most critical reaction devices for biogas engineering, wherein is usually a large amount of flammable gas methane. Fire and explosion accidents will be easily triggered if the gas leaks, threatening the surrounding buildings, equipment, personnel, and so forth. Avoiding the significant accidents caused by CH4 leakage has become a critical issue in the design and condition monitoring for an anaerobic reactor. This article presents a model construction method for leakage early‐warning. Incident database and hazard and operability analysis (HAZOP) can be utilized to identify the leakage risks, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation and consequence quantity calculation can be used to determine the consequence influence ranges. The calculation results can be employed to establish prediction models for abnormal situations. Process safety management (PSM) data and risk analysis results can be combined with the possible abnormal situations to assist operators in adopting the right solutions. An early‐warning system has been developed to illustrate the industrial application of the model. It can be concluded that collecting multi‐parameter values according to the real‐time changes in the actual production process, continuous monitoring and early‐warning of leakage risk, and so forth, will contribute to accident avoiding and emergency response in reactor operations.
Due to its ability to recover both material and energy from organic waste, biogas technology is considered the best technology for treating organic waste. While in many emerging Asian countries more than 50% of municipal waste is organic waste, the amount of organic waste treated with biogas technology remains very limited. This study identified key challenges faced by practitioners in sustaining biogas plants from literature and interviewed a number of sustainably operating biogas plant managers and, based on the findings, developed an implementation framework to help decision makers and practitioners in planning a sustainable municipal organic waste biogas plant facility.
Ireland has a significant potential resource to decarbonise natural gas through producing green gas for renewable heat and transport. Key resources for anaerobic digestion include food waste, slurry from farming, and grass silage. This paper establishes production pathways for consideration in a certification scheme. Certification is required to ensure guarantee of origin and sustainability. This paper also identifies potential challenges relating to sustainability and end use. Analysis in this paper shows that biomethane must effect 14.4 g CO2-eq/MJ for renewable heat and 32.9 g CO2-eq/MJ for transport fuel to be deemed sustainable according to the recast Renewable Energy Directive. A sample calculation for grass biomethane shows that the emissions criteria for renewable transport are significantly easier to satisfy compared to renewable heat. Grass biomethane can achieve an emissions saving of 76% for transport, meeting the 65% emissions saving criteria. For use as heat, the saving achieved is 66% against criteria of 80%. As such, these criteria push renewable gas production towards transport as an end use rather than heat. This will have implications for the development of the industry in Ireland.
Pollutants are released into the atmosphere due to production and consumption energy especially from fossil. However, not only the environmental concerns but also the increase in energy demand promotes the researchers to develop new and current energy alternatives that cause zero- or low-negative environmental impact. Anaerobic fermentation can be used for the treatment of organic wastes (OW) such as kitchen waste, municipal solid waste, industrial organic waste, animal manure, and agricultural residues. The fuel produced from anaerobic digestion is environmental friendly. Kitchen wastes (KWs) are easily biodegradable organic material with high moisture, carbohydrate, lipid, and protein. The use of KW only in anaerobic digestion reduces the activity of methanogenic bacteria as a result of rapid accumulation of volatile fatty acids followed by a pH drop in the reactor, thus, adjusting C/N by some additives to accelerate the growth of methanogens and methane formation is necessary. The favorable pH for methanogens’ growth range of 6.5 to 7.2. Furthermore, the key factors controlling the production of volatile fatty acids during fermentation for methanogenesis represented in pH, temperature, C/N ratio, and hydraulic retention time.
The number of biodiesel production plants is rapidly growing around the world, and the related “green” technologies are developing to full industrial scale within a brief time. The exploitation of these relatively new technologies with a low operational experience is however leading to an increase in the number of accidents in this industrial sector. To better address and characterise the problem of the high accident rate in the “green” technologies in biodiesel production, an in-depth statistical analysis of past accidents has been performed. The set of records analysed (93 events, from 2003 to 2017) has been selected to depict the most relevant factors affecting the accident rate, e.g. the age of the plant and its status at the time of the accident or unit and substances involved. Correlations between characteristics of the unwanted events, such as scenario and causes, have been evidenced. The analysis of the frequency and severity of past accidents allowed an estimate of the risk figure with respect to major accident hazard for biodiesel industry, unveiling the misconception for which green technologies as biodiesel production are often perceived as safer.
The rapid progress of innovative biorefinery technologies raises the issue of emerging risk and major accident hazard in biorefineries, as process safety aspects of such technologies are not developing at the same pace with respect to their dissemination and scale-up.
To address such problem, in the present work a consequence-based approach was integrated in the framework of a consolidated QRA methodology (ARAMIS), formerly developed in the context of Seveso Directive in the process industries (mainly oil&gas). Among all the possible scenarios identified using ARAMIS, Relevant Accident Scenarios (RAS) were selected by calculating hazard distances using threshold values for the evaluation of damages on human target derived from existing regulations on the control of major accident hazards.
The method has been described and used to quantify the risk associated to a biorefinery process: the conversion of lignocellulosic biomass materials to levulinic acid and gamma-valerolactone, where the use of hazardous substances and severe process conditions are required.
Using the proposed approach allowed to reduce the number of scenarios to be retained for further analysis. The RAS resulted 1/3 of the scenarios initially identified, simplifying the rest of the risk assessment procedure.
The integrated methodology enabled to depict a risk figure for the plant analysed which is not over-conservative, being beneficial during the risk management phase, when risk reduction measures have to be selected and implemented in order to achieve risk tolerance.
A thermal risk assessment for the hydrogenation of levulinic acid to gamma-valerolactone by using Ru/C has been performed.
For that, a kinetic model was built under adiabatic condition by using Advanced Reactive System Screening Tool (ARSST).
By using the estimated rate constants and the reaction enthalpies, the safety parameters: Time to maximum rate under adiabatic condition (TMR) and adiabatic temperature rise (ΔTad) were calculated for different operating conditions.
Based on the recommendation of Stoessel, a risk matrix was established by using the two safety parameters.
With this methodology, it is possible to determine the safe operating conditions for this reaction.
In the present work, the risk assessment of a biogas production and upgrading plant, representative of most of the biogas sites widespread throughout Europe, was carried out. The biogas is produced by anaerobic digestion for heat and power generation. An upgrading section (based on membrane technology) was also considered, for the production of biomethane to be injected in the national gas grid. A set of possible loss of containments for each equipment unit was defined and the potential dangerous phenomena were identified by means of an event-tree analysis. The impact of such phenomena was assessed in terms of damage distances.
The production of biogas is positioned as energy which can not only generate a source of energy known as "green" but also which can recycle waste. In the context of sustainable development, the place of biogas is therefore essential. The risks corresponding to the production processes and uses of are still too little known. Several questions about the optimization of the production, the safety, the harmonization of the regulations and the need to develop standards are discussed in this paper, based on the results of a workshop on biogas safety and regulation organized in November 2010 by the authors
Biodiesel is a very attractive bio-fuel because of its environmental benefits. Indeed, it has lower content of air pollutants per net energy than diesel; it is nontoxic and can be produced from renewable sources with high energetic efficiency. Quite clearly, despite biodiesel status as a safe substance, the production process can be dangerous as methanol and other flammable reactants such as sodium methylate can leave plants vulnerable to fire and explosion if not properly engineered and operated. But further issues are emerging for the increasing capacity of plants, which have driven up on-site volumes of highly hazardous chemicals, thus resulting in higher risks for the scale-up. In this paper, insights of risks within this fairly new industry are presented.
• Written by a committee of safety professionals, this book creates a foundation document for the development and application of risk tolerance criteria • Helps safety managers evaluate the frequency, severity and consequence of human injury • Includes examples of risk tolerance criteria used by NASA, Earthquake Response teams and the International Maritime Organization, amongst others • Helps achieve consistency in risk-based decision-making • Reduces potential liabilities in the use of quantitative risk tolerance criteria through reference to an industry guidance document. © 2009 American Institute of Chemical Engineers, Inc. All rights reserved.
A study of 261 accidents involving domino effect has been carried out. The main features have been analyzed: origin, causes, consequences and most frequent sequences. The analysis has shown that the most frequent causes are external events (31%) and mechanical failure (30%). The storage areas (37%) and process plants (27%) are by far the most common places where domino accidents have occurred. The most common sequence in the event trees resulted to be explosion-fire (21%), followed by release-fire-explosion (15%) and fire-explosion (14%).
This paper focuses on the approach that the Netherlands has chosen for large biogas-producing co- fermentors that fall under the Seveso Directive and for which a Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) needs to be performed. In this context, two main questions arise: 1) when does an establishment with a large amount of biogas formally fall under the Seveso Directive?, and 2) what scenarios and failure frequencies should be used in a QRA?Recently, a regulation containing new criteria for hazard classification of substances and mixtures for supply and use was implemented in the European Union. This has led to a revision of the Seveso Directive and changes to its scope. Under the revised Seveso Directive, a higher percentage of hydrogen sulphide is needed for biogas to be classified as acutely toxic and for it to come into scope of the Directive. For the flammable properties, limited changes are observed for uncleaned biogas. However, upgraded biogas will benefit from higher qualifying quantities in the revised Seveso Directive.
Because no systematic incident analyses are available, no appropriate scenarios and frequencies are available to calculate third party risks. For this situation, the RIVM (as the manager of the QRA approach in the Netherlands) suggested to consider typical fermentors as atmospheric vessels for which defined scenarios are available. Further investigations are needed to determine if this approach is valid.
Some recent accidents involving the bioenergy production and feedstock supply chain raised concern on the safety of such technologies. A survey of major accidents related to the production of bioenergy (intended as biomass, bioliquids/biofuels and biogas) was carried out, and a data repository was built, based on past accident reports available in the open literature and in specific databases. Data analysis shows that major accidents are increasing in recent years and their number is growing faster than bioenergy production. The results obtained represent an early warning concerning the major accident hazard of bioenergies, and suggest the importance of risk awareness and safety culture in bioenergy production, in the perspective of a safe and sustainable exploitation of renewable resources.
The principle that the risks for a facility should be reduced to As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) increasingly is embraced around the world. This article describes how the principle can be used to establish both individual and group risk tolerance criteria that are needed for risk analysis studies using techniques such as Layers of Protection Analysis. The consideration of uncertainties in risk estimates in the ALARP context and the use of the precautionary principle are also described, and the use of cost–benefit analysis in applying the ALARP principle is discussed. Other related principles used in risk management are described. © 2013 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 33: 36–40, 2014
An increasing number of countries have introduced or plan to introduce policies to increase the proportion of biofuels within their energy portfolio. One impact is that biofuel production has been abruptly increasing for more than 5 years, leading to increasing number of production sites world-wide and also to diversification of processes and approaches to produce biofuel. There is today a large range of technologies currently available for producing so-called first-generation of biofuels and reasonably advanced processes that are dramatically expected for the production of biofuels that would use biomass that does not enter in competition with food and feed use. However, only very limited consideration has so far been given to safety issues. Nevertheless, risks exist throughout the biofuel life cycle. Although these safety issues do not actually represent a potential barrier on biofuel development, they deserve serious consideration. In this paper, we propose to rank the risks pertaining to biofuel chains by implementing a decision-making tool, BIOSAFUEL®. From easily accessible input data, BIOSAFUEL® allows the user to build up a pre-diagnosis of the risks implicit to the whole life cycle of a given biofuel chain. We applied BIOSAFUEL® to first-generation bioethanol chains as a first case study.
Biofuel production has been expanding for more than five years, leading to an increasing number of production sites worldwide and also to a tremendous diversification of processes and approaches to producing biofuel. Such a fast move in industry has sometimes proven in the past to potentially lead to underestimating safety management needs. The significant number of existing facilities producing so called first generation biofuel allows for a reasonable survey of safety issues from incidents. In 2006, INERIS initiated research work devoted to the analysis of safety-related issues including the implementation of an incidents database. Its purpose is to collect known and reasonably well documented incidents (explosions, fires, spills, derailments, and road accidents) that relate to the life cycle of biofuel supply chains. This paper focuses on the analysis of this database, which contains 100 incidents that occurred from January 2000 to early 2009. From the database, an attempt has been made to identify the root factors of incidents potentially impacting biofuel supply chains, using statistical methods like multiple correspondence analysis and ascendant hierarchical clustering. This multivariate analysis exercise has led us to identify five main incident typologies, which in turn allows us to draw appropriate information on safety issues pertaining to first-generation biofuel supply chains. Each typology is illustrated by actual cases of accidents. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd
A study has been carried out of accidents occurring in seaports. A total of 471 accidents occurring between the beginning of the twentieth century and October 2002 have been analysed. The results obtained show a significant increase in the frequency of accidents over time: 83% of the accidents occurred in the last 20 years and 59% in the past decade. The most frequent accidents were releases (51%), followed by fires (29%), explosions (17%) and gas clouds (3%). More than half the accidents occurred during transport: loading/unloading operations, storage and process plants also make a large contribution to the total. The various causes of the accidents have also been analysed, as have the type of substance involved and the consequences for the population (number of people killed, injured and evacuated). Finally, some conclusions are drawn concerning the need to improve certain safety measures in ports.
Fire is among the more dangerous accident scenarios that may affect the process and chemical industry. Beside the immediate and direct harm to workers and population, fire may also cause damages to structures, which may trigger escalation resulting in severe secondary scenarios. Fireproofing is usually applied to improve the capacity of structures to maintain their integrity during a fire. Past accidents evidenced that the available standards for fireproofing application in onshore chemical and process plants do not consider all the fire scenarios that may cause structural damage. In the present study a methodology was developed for the identification of the zones where fireproofing should be applied. The effect of both pool fires and jet fires was accounted. Simplified criteria, based on radiative heat intensity, were provided for the identification of the fire protection zones. A risk-based procedure was proposed for the selection of significant reference release scenarios to be used in the evaluation of worst credible fire consequences.
A study of 1932 accidents that occurred during the transport of hazardous substances by road and rail from the beginning of the 20th century to July 2004 was carried out. The results obtained show an increase in the frequency of accidents over time. More than half of the accidents happened on roads (63%). The most frequent accidents were releases (78%), followed by fires (28%), explosions (14%) and gas clouds (6%). The various causes of the accidents, the type of substance involved and the consequences for the population (number of people killed, injured or evacuated) were also analysed. Among the diverse measures taken to improve this situation, the training of professional people involved in transportation seems to be of major importance.
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