Many consumers may have never heard of “nitriding”, but just about every metal component in heavy equipment will go through a “nitriding process” to strengthen the metal. And it is this nitriding process that many businesses have a HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL/PROPRIETARY blend for their process. Seems everyone has a slightly different blend and they hold this recipe near and dear as a “competitive advantage”, and rightly so. But it is this “blending” that creates NEW chemicals by a disassociation process and then some of these new chemicals are blended with other chemicals (i.e. mixture) which in some cases can have entirely different hazards requiring us to have additional Safety Data Sheets (SDS) and training. I deal with a lot of Nitriding Processes because many use Anhydrous Ammonia as their feedstock. Yes, many of these nitriding processes are PSM and RMP covered processes, but it is the basic HAZCOM aspect I want to discuss in this article.
When Anhydrous Ammonia (NH3) is heated to around 850°F, the bonds between the Nitrogen and Hydrogen are broken. It is the Nitrogen we want for the “nitriding process” and the hydrogen is oftentimes vented to the atmosphere, but a few clients are now capturing the hydrogen for other uses or just cost savings. By the way, most businesses use NH3 and the disassociation process rather than buying pure nitrogen as it is much cheaper to breakdown NH3 for the N2 than it is to by pure N2. But the fact of the matter is, with this disassociation of NH3…