Chemical Hazards In The Working Environment Environmental Sciences Essay

Chemical Hazards In The Working Environment Environmental Sciences Essay Chemical Engineering is defined as the branch of engineering which is involved in the application of physical science and mathematics to processing and converting raw materials and chemicals into more useful forms. The outputs and methods of these processes are not always safe and chemical hazards need to be overcome to make the working environment a satisfactorily hospitable for everyone that the process affects. This includes the general public and the environment as well as the workers involved. Chemical Engineers need to ensure that the safety measures which they devise regarding certain processes are adequate enough not to pose hazards and to meet the regulations of the law. This term paper will outline some of the hazards which Chemical Engineers and other workers in the industry need to neutralise to ensure that the working environment is safe for those involved. A hazard is defined as anything which could result in an accident. Such hazards include those caused by the releas e of noxious chemicals which can prove damaging to the health of people and the environment. Chemical hazards can be especially dangerous due to the toxic nature of the substances used in the industry. Plant Safety The health and safety of plant workers is a major concern to the chemical industry. Accidents which result in loss of life or injuries are especially damaging due to the high costs they inflict. Costs in retraining personnel, repairing equipment damaged in have huge costs, as well as the interruption in business that ensues after an accident. The trends have shown that over the years fatalities have decreased but property costs have increased. This trend is due to the increased automated systems used in plants. These systems have increased complexity and productivity to older designs. In earlier designs the workers were more exposed to the chemical processes taking place in the plant, and were in turn exposed to more hazards. This however poses another problem because if workers are more isolated from a process, even if this greatly reduces health and safety hazards then if a malfunction occurs in the plant it is much more difficult to have experienced personnel available to fix a process problem. Due to this action compensation must be made in the case of higher property costs as opposed to loss of life and injury to workers. â€Å"As of the early 1990’s, annual worker fatalities ran about 9 per 100,000 employees; annual lost time disabling injuries ran about 4,000 per 100,000 employees. Property Losses increased fourfold from the 1970’s†. Safety assessments are now undergone on chemical plants to ensure that they adhere to safety levels proposed by regulation standards. Quantification of hazards such as overpressure potential and flammability were done by measurements of vapour pressure and of flash points and flammability limits. The process designers need to make use of data that gives information pertaining to the hazards o f a process such as information of reaction rates and the energies involved in exothermic reactions in which heat is given out, that of unstable chemicals, of temperature limits in which explosive decomposition can occur, rates of generation of gas and vapour and emergency fail-safes such as pressure releases for high pressure systems.