# 2007 IChemE

IChemE SYMPOSIUM SERIES NO. 153

INHERENT SAFETY THROUGH INTENSIVE STRUCTURED PROCESSING:

THE IMPULSE PROJECT
Parastoo Khoshabi1 and Paul. N. Sharratt2
1
e-mail: Parastoo.khoshabi@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk
2
e-mail: paul.sharratt@manchester.ac.uk
Safety, health and environmental (SHE) issues are important factors that need to be taken into
account in any process and ultimately plant in order to avoid or minimize any harm to employees
and environment. The main aim of the IMPULSE project is to innovate through targeted application of structured processing equipment such as microreactors, compact heat exchangers and thin
film devices. Substitution of batch plant by continuous plant in pharmaceutical and fine chemical
plant is another aim. There is expected to be a considerable difference between the safety, health
and environmental performance of traditional and IMPULSE plants. In this paper an initial comparison of hazard issues in batch and IMPULSE continuous (IC) plant is made, and the methods
used to analyse the situation are discussed. The comparison of conventional and IC plant is considered for the hydrogenation process as case study in terms of SHE (safety, health and environment) issues. While in the IMPULSE plant major releases and hazards are clearly less likely for
IC, the potential for operator exposure and minor problems may be greater. It is concluded that
further work is required to assess the overall balance of changes in SHE performance to be able
to inform designers.

KEYWORDS: inherent safety, environment, IMPULSE, process intensification

the target was equipment size, not business success. In

this context, business benefit is taken to include safety and
environmental performance.
The novel, IMPULSE devices will be smaller compared to conventional devices. There should be a considerable difference between traditional and IMPULSE
technologies in terms of fire and explosion risks, harmful
emissions and efficiency. In order to find out whether, and
in what ways IMPULSE continuous plant is inherently
safer than batch, a comprehensive assessment is required.
Green chemistry has also emerged as a response to
growing public fear of chemicals and the chemical industry.
Green chemistry is the design of substances and processes
that eliminate the use and generation of hazardous material.
Green chemistry is a central approach to pollution prevention and seeks to introduce innovative scientific solutions
to the environmental problem. Anastas and Warner (1998)
provide 12 principles for green chemistry, which include
requirements for the avoidance of hazardous substance,
materials and energy efficiency and reduction of accident
potential.
A main strategy in developing inherently safer chemical process is process intensification. Reduction of inventory
of hazardous substances or energy leads to reduction of the
consequences of failure to control that hazardous substance
(Barton and Rogers 1993). Safety of a plant should be based
on reduction of possible damage. Safety devices are not
perfect and will probably fail at some point; they are not
totally reliable. In a chemical plant with large content of
hazardous material or energy, the result of the failure of
the add-on safety devices can be large. In a small plant the
inherent capability to cause damage is reduced, so small

in a healthy society, engineering design gets

smarter and smarter; in gangster states it gets
bigger and bigger
Peter Beckman
INTRODUCTION
If a system remains non-hazardous when subject to all
deviations that might lead to danger, the system is called
inherently safe. According to (Kletz 1998) this arises from
designing a safe plant and not by adding equipment to the
system to make it safe. This can be achieved by preventing
problems at their root causes; therefore inherent safety has
an important role during process design.
Nowadays, industries are looking for shorter lead
times, higher quality for their products as well as lower
environmental discharges and safer plant. It has been
suggested that in order for the chemical industry to
survive in the developed world, radical and novel
approaches are needed. The main aim of the IMPULSE
Project (Integrated Process Units with Locally Structured
Elements) is to innovate through application of structured
process equipment such as microreactors, compact heat
exchangers and thin film device (Sharratt, Matlosz and
Bayer 2006). Substitution of batch by continuous plant in
pharmaceutical and fine chemical plants is another aim.
The IMPULSE approach is application driven in other
words the novel devices being deployed with the aim of
delivering the best possible process outcome; this is distinct
from the early approaches of Process Intensification where

www.impulse-project.net IMPULSE is an EU Framework 6 Integrated
Project for the deployment of novel structured processing devices.

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plant can be considered safer (Stankiewicz and Moulijn

2004). Nevertheless, there is also a need to reduce probability of hazards as much as possible it is possible that
the increased complexity of small plant might result in
more frequent problems and therefore increased risk.
In order to support comparison of the IMPULSE continuous (IC) plant with conventional plant the main Safety,
Health and Environmental issues for a typical Pharmaceutical plant are listed in Table 1. This table also summarises existing understanding of the means to assess the
corresponding risk for IC plant, or equally identifies gaps.

batch manufacturing methods requires deep consideration.

IMPULSE is trying to achieve inherent safety through one
or more of
.
.

.
.

having all equipment as small and safe as possible

allowing substitution of dangerous materials with less
dangerous by being able to process them in ways not
possible in traditional plant
attenuation of the operating conditions and
intensifying the process to minimise inventories.

To move beyond the simple argument that smaller is

better needs a more detailed analysis. Reasons for having
large reactors are low conversion and slow reaction or
both. If the conversion is low, reactants should be recovered
or recycled which leads to increasing inventory, particularly

INHERENT SAFETY AND IMPULSE

It is important to find the best choice of technology in order
to apply in a system. Choosing between IC and conventional

Table 1. Major SHE hazards in primary pharmaceutical manufacture

Hazards in
pharmaceutical
plants (batch)
Runaway reaction

Loss of reactor
cooling or agitation during
an exothermic reaction

Reactor over
-pressurization

Overcharging with
compressed gas or liquid
Excessive vapour generation

Fire and explosion

Due to handling flammable

solvent or finely
divided organic powders.

Dust explosion

Size of PM ,75

microns form
exposure mixture in air.
Lower explosive
limit 15 60 gm m23
Upper explosive
limit 2 6 kg m23
Secondary dust explosions
which come from the ignition
of very large dust clouds
have the most severe
consequences
Due to uncontrolled exposure
to harmful substances.
Due to exposure to harmful
physical conditions

Occupational
health

Protection
approaches

Due to

Emergency venting
Containment
Crash cooling
Reaction inhibition
Adopting suitable
operating procedures.
Using relief pressure valve

Testing the materials

used for fire and
explosion potential
Safe process design
(considering key factors
such as gas and vapour
limits, flammable and highly
flammable liquids, finely
divided powders and dusts)
Eliminate potential
ignition sources
Adequate earthling of metal
conductors and
electrostatic charges
Explosion venting, inerting
suppression and containment

Containment, PPE,
automation

IC plant issues/
risk assessment
Lower because of
lower inventory

Lower risk as devices

can withstand
higher pressure, also
lower storage of
pressure energy in
smaller devices
Lower risk because of
lower inventory and
stronger device

Not clear

Not clear, but more

complex plant with
more joints may
be a concern

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in batch reactions. In continuous plant it will tend to lead to

additional plant items to carry out the separations, with
additional opportunities for leakage. While acceleration of
reaction by catalysis or higher temperature/pressure are
possible there are problems. Development of catalytic
systems is expensive and difficult, especially where the reaction is not one of the set of commonly catalysed reactions
(such as hydrogenation). While running under more
extreme conditions can reduce reactor volume substantially,
there is a trade-off of increasing the hazard per mass of
process fluid, as well as increasing the likelihood of corrosion. In general, plants with vapour phase processing
will have lower inventories than liquid phase processes,
but this is rarely feasible for pharmaceutical processes that
have large, thermally sensitive molecules of low vapour
pressure.
Clearly, some types of hazard are much reduced by
moving to intensive, continuous processing. For example,
in a semi batch reactor in operation one or more reactant
is in the reactor and the last reactant can be added during
the progress of reaction. As the process progresses, the
accumulation of unreacted material can happen due to
failure of the mixing process or exhaustion of the catalysts.
In general, even at high pressure and temperature a small
reactor is safe as it has little material and in the extreme
case of loss of all material, it is still nearly impossible to
have a serious incident.
Issues that need to be engineered in order to control
hazards in IMPULSE plants include:

METHOD
The IMPULSE project is developing a number of industrial
case studies in applications in a range of industry sectors
and by the end of the project all of these will be assessed for
their SHE and Sustainability performance. The work
reported here concentrates on the application to pharmaceutical production, and in particular hydrogenation. In
order to understand the scope and nature of real industrial
issues and concerns and to investigate the current hazard
issues and what would change with an equivalent IC plant
the following approach has been adopted.
.

.
.

Survey of safety issues for an existing hydrogenation

(questionnaire) for IMPULSE partners, including identification of concerns in moving to IC plant (Case Study
A);
Consideration of a specific hydrogenation process (both
an exisiting batch process and an IC equivalent) (Case
Study B);
Gap analysis to identify areas for further analysis;
Generation of further research targets to fill the identified gaps.
In this paper, the first two are addressed.

CASE STUDY A
In order to have a better understanding of the hazards a survey
was carried out at one of the companies participating in
IMPULSE which operates a range of batch chemicals processes, including hydrogenation. The questions were
divided into 7 sections such as training, cost, monitoring,
hazards, storage and handling of H2. The questions were put
to the technologists responsible for the technical support of
an operating multi-purpose hydrogenation unit in the UK.
The companys response to the questionnaire
indicated that in order to achieve a safe plant various
different hazard identification approaches are used, such as
COSHH, studies based on the 6-stage ICI hazard assessment
system, COSHH assessment, manual handling assessment.
More detailed studies are done by third parties such as contractors/consultants.
It was concluded that in the hydrogenation plant many
safety precautions are taken and safety assessment delivers a
high level of performance. Their major worry is about the
nature of hydrogen. As it is highly flammable they believed
that reducing the inventory would certainly reduce the
hazards and capital cost. However, they also believe that
the novel technology has its own problems. For example,
the need for reactors with wide processing capability is
one of the main concerns. In addition the presence of impurities might be a big driver in novel technology so getting rid
of impurity is another substantial concern. Whether moving
from conventional plant to novel plant is cost effective or
not is another concern; as usual money is important. It is
important for the people who invest for it to know the cost
effectiveness of moving from conventional plant to the
IMPULSE plant. SHE issues might be a big driver for
H2. The risk most probably will change in IMPULSE
plant for example the pressure in the conventional plant

. Equipment is smaller in size but maybe more in number

. More sophisticated to operate / more complex, so
additional concerns around control reliability
. Higher probability of failure of some devices for
example microreactors often have very thin internal
walls that may be less thick than a typical corrosion
allowance in a standard plant item
. There may be more connections (and potentially more
leaks)
. Under more severe operating conditions devices may be
more prone to blockage, failure
. More maintenance may be required.
By contrast, advantages are as follows:
. Smaller inventory
. Larger surface area belongs to small plant; therefore,
additional cooling capacity is not required.
. They can be built in whole or part off-site at specialist
workshops, allowing higher engineering standards to
be delivered easily.
. Devices can be passive (i.e., no moving parts like agitators ) so IC can be more reliable
. Greater heat loss/ cooling capacity
. Physically stronger
. Lower accumulation.

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is not a concern because pressure in the conventional plant

tends to be near atmospheric pressure. By contrast, pressure
is a main concern in novel plant. The leakage from valves
and flanges might not be a concern in novel technology
though leakage from pumps might be as the numbers of
pumps are more in novel plant compared to the conventional
plant. It seems that in order to satisfy the plant technologists
that the novel technology is safe, more evidence required.

sufficient; for example there is no information about

possible changes to the operation temperature, pressure
and so on. However, just using common sense it can be
found out that the hazards of having runaway reaction is
less due to having less inventory, the possibility of human
error may be less due to using computers rather than rely
on humans. Furthermore, the possibility of injury to employees is low due to not having the operators around the system
continuously. The operator most probably would be in a
control room and controlling the system. Thus, in case of
having explosion (which in any case would be small due
to low inventory) the operator is away from the system so
the risk of injury is much reduced.

CASE STUDY B
A hydrogenation process operated by another IMPULSE
partner was considered. This hydrogenation step is one
stage in a longer synthetic chain. Initially, a comparison
was made of all safety issues for the exisiting process and
an outline design for an IC hydrogenation process. Here,
an attempt was made to develop a side-by-side comparison
of all of the safety issues in the two types of plant. An
excerpt of the results is given in Table 2.
It can be seen from Table 2 even at this stage that our
knowledge of the detailed design of the IC plant is not

CONCLUSION AND FUTURE WORK

While major releases and hazards are clearly less likely for
IC, the potential for operator exposure and minor problems
may be greater more work is needed to resolve this.
Also, as the IC plants are going to be compact compared
to conventional plant so this technology probably requires

Table 2. Excerpt of comparison of equipment hazards in Case Study B hydrogenation process and assumed IC process

Issues/features

Current
process

Manhole

Yes

No

Leakage of H2
from flanges

Yes

Leakage of N2
(used for inerting)

Yes

Exothermic
reaction
Existence of
solvent storage
Pressure

Yes
Yes

Probably small flanges

are involved and
may have more
Probably fewer flanges
will be used so the
leakage is lower,
possible that inerting
not needed
Less likely and very
small inventory
?

45 psi

Number of flanges

Existence of
agitator
Existence of
ventilation system
Quality of construction

Hazard concerns
related to these issues
in Case Study B

IC

Operator exposure
in inspection
Fire and explosion due to
high amount of leakage

Hazard concerns
related to these
issues in IC plant
None

Operator suffocation

Lower inventory,
reduction of leak rate,
but possibly more leaks
Eliminated?

Explosion

Lower volume (less energy)

Flammable

Probably still required

High p

25

Having higher leakage

Yes

Probably not

Breaking the agitator

Yes

Hydrogenation would be
in a well-vented place
It may change e.g. due
to corrosion a better
alloy and protection
layer is needed.

Failure of
ventilation system

P is great but V is less

and E PV So released
energy is small
Probably less leakage,
though the number of
pumps might be more
than conventional plant
Maybe or having kind of
rotating disks
Need to consider ventilation
in smaller, tighter plant
Corrosion

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Khan, F. I. and P. R. Amyotte (2004). Integrated inherent

safety index (I2SI): A tool for inherent safety evaluation.
Process safety progress 23(2): 136 148.
Kletz, T. A. (1998). Process plants: a handbook for
inherently safer design, Philadelphia, Pa.; London: Taylor
& Francis.
Sharratt, P. N., M. Matlosz and Bayer T. (2006). IMPULSE- the
challenges in adopting a new processing paradigm. CHISA,
Prague, Czech republic.
Stankiewicz, A. J. and J. A. Moulijn (2004). Re-engineering
the chemical processing plant, New York: Marcel Dekker
Inc.

new identification and qualification methods; all of the

methods found in the literature are for conventional plant
with significant spacing between plant items. As IC plant
is smaller it might be possible to use energy integration
and possibly even renewable energy sources. Another
theme that has emerged is the relation between size of
plant and risk, as well as how this risk changes in moving
from traditional batch to IC plant.
REFERENCES
Barton, J. and R. Rogers (1993). Chemical reaction hazards,
Institution of chemical engineering, Rugby, UK.
Hendershot, D. C. (2006). An overview of inherently safer
design. Process safety progress 25(2): 98 107.