Process Safety from Bench to Pilot to Plant

2021

Process Safety Progress, 2004

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2020

The objective of this research is to analyse global process safety incidents within the pharmaceutical industry in terms of their consequences and factors contributing to the incidents. There were 73 process safety incidents leading to 108 fatalities found between 1985 and 2019. Trends between the number of incidents, number of fatalities, location, and contributing factors were identified and summarized. The most reported fatalities occurred in 2018 & 2019. 83% of fatalities occurred in China and India. Explosions were associated with 71% of incidents, which resulted in 89% of fatalities. For most of the international incidents, incident investigations were not available and thus insufficient details were available to determine the causes. Contributing factors were available or estimated from available data for about half of the incidents, with the following most common: hazard awareness & identification; operating procedures; design; safeguards, controls & layers of protection; safety culture; and preventive maintenance. These findings can be used as a basis to improve process safety performance in the pharmaceutical industry.

Process Safety Progress, 2008

From 1985 to 2000, large western chemical and petroleum companies, collaborating through the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), developed a sophisticated level of process safety knowledge and shared this knowledge in the western world through conferences and English-language books. This approach proved satisfactory to address the process safety needs of a large proportion of global industry existing at the time. However, since 2000, the industry has been expanding significantly in developing regions of the world. Communications in these new regions are complicated by language, time zone differences, and culture. Additionally, as reported by the US Chemical Safety Board, many smaller companies, even in the west, are often unaware of the considerable resources that have been developed. Finally, new engineers entering the workplace around the world are generally unable to travel, to attend courses or technical sessions. And because of the Internet resources available to them during their formative years, they are less enthused about plowing through hardcover books to retrieve information. It is clear that traditional books, courses, and technical sessions do not always successfully reach all of these groups. CCPS has recognized that the communication paradigm must be changed and expanded. This article addresses what CCPS is doing to (a) close physical and language gaps, through on-site participation and translation of key materials, and (b) use exciting new Internet tools to facilitate interactions across distances that meet the needs of new engineers. 2007 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Process Saf Prog 27: 2-6, 2008 This article is a summary of a paper recently published. Please see Ref. 1 for a more detailed description.

Process Safety Progress, 2009

, water contamination of a tank of methyl isocyanate in Bhopal, India initiated a series of events that led to a catastrophic toxic release, killing more than 3,000 residents and injuring over 100,000. Immediately after, leaders from the chemical industry asked AIChE to lead a collaborative effort to eliminate catastrophic process incidents by advancing state of the art technology and management practices, serving as the premier resource for information on process safety, supporting process safety in engineering, and promoting process safety as a key industry value. In the spring of 1985, CCPS was founded. Since that time, CCPS has incorporated experience-based learning from major and minor accidents and near-misses into a world-class collection of guideline documents, resource books, and online content. This paper will reflect on the history of CCPS, highlight some recent accomplishments, and present a glimpse at the future of process safety.

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2022

This article presents a bibliometric analysis and mapping of the Chinese process safety research, focusing on the contributions made in core process safety journals and on the influences of international collaborations and knowledge sources on the developments of this research domain. Collaboration networks, term co-occurrence networks, and co-citation network were analyzed to identify trends, patterns, and the knowledge distribution of the Chinese research on process safety. Work to data has been clustered mainly on safety of chemical processes, fire and explosion, and risk management and accidents. Chinese research contributions are concentrated in only few journals, while the corresponding intellectual base draws on the wider literature focused on understanding and modeling phenomena, and on the broader risk research literature, although to a lesser extent. While various foreign authors are highly cited by Chinese authors, only very few direct collaborations with international scholars are identified. The results are used as a basis for a discussion on future research directions and developments for the community. Increased focus on uncertainty treatment and handling of black swan events, risk evaluation and economic aspects of safety decisions, interorganizational risk management, road and maritime transport of hazardous substances, risk perception and communication, and integrated safety and security assessment, are highlighted as fruitful directions for future scholarship. It is hoped that the insights obtained from this work can facilitate new and consolidated collaborations, as well as further invigorate the Chinese process safety domain, ultimately contributing to improved safety performance of process industries in China and elsewhere.

2021

2016

Vijay Bhujle has more than 35 years experience in process development, scale up and technology transfer. He has worked in pharma API manufacturing &formulation, polymer additives, soaps& detergent formulation, food and crop protection chemicals. He had a long stint from 1993 onwards with the erstwhile Ciba and later was its General Manager, Research & Technology. He had training on process safety, powder handling safety and audits at Ciba, Switzerland. He has conducted large number of EHS audits and incident investigations. Earlier he had also worked with Atul Ltd and also at Hindustan Lever Research Centre. His last stint was with Intertek, before starting his own company now, GVS Cibatech P Ltd alongwith a few of his colleagues from Ciba. His company provides consultancy services mainly in process safety, environmental services and regulatory services for pharma, food and chemical industries. He is a visiting faculty at Institute of Chemical Technology (UDCT), Mumba

2015

PresentationProcess Safety Management (PSM), as a loss prevention management system, has been used for many years to limit and control risks in the Chemical Process Industries (CPI). Losses at chemical and petrochemical facilities are characterized by high energy fire and explosions which in many cases have received large press coverage. Most CPI fires and explosions happened in organic hydrocarbon processes originating from mechanical integrity failures. Mineral, metallurgical refining and pulp and paper processes, on the other hand, feature seemingly benign and often non combustible chemicals. Corrosion in acid plants, physical explosions of digesters, autoclaves, and black liquor recovery boilers have been more common than fires or combustion explosions. This paper presents case studies of incidents in several non-chemical occupancies and efforts made by some companies in Eastern Canada to incorporate elements of PSM as a tool for loss prevention and risk management

Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries, 2012

This paper presents the current trends of future-oriented prevention management in the chemical-using industry. Two concepts leading to the next generation of managing prevention within chemical industrial areas are explained and discussed. The first concept concerns integrated design-based safety and security; the second concerns the collaboration of several chemical plants to increase sustainable development of their activities and their environment.