Flammable Liquids

At 3:11 p.m. Employee #1, who had worked with the company for three months as a forklift operator/ repacking, was working alone in the repacking area making a transfer of acetone (flammable liquid) from an elevated 793-gallon stainless steel intermediate bulk container (tote) to a 350-gallon stainless steel tote on the floor. In order to…...

I do not know much about this video, such as where it was shot, was it a set up for demo or real-life.  But the FLIR footage is quite telling as we can see the vapors exiting the fill port.  These days in the USA a lot of stations have a “vapor-recovery” system so I…...

This week we saw OSHA issue a $1.5M citation after an explosion killed four workers at a silicon chemical products manufacturer.  All of the citations were classified as Willful and all were related to using equipment that was not approved for a hazardous location (HAZLOC).  This week I was working with a client doing a…...

This week we saw OSHA issue a $1.5M citation after an explosion killed four workers at a silicon chemical products manufacturer.  All of the citations were classified as Willful and all were related to using equipment that was not approved for a hazardous location (HAZLOC).  This week I was working with a client doing a…...

This is another case of a PLASTIC tote being used for a NON-CONDUCTIVE Flammable Liquid and a serious incident occured due to the failure to control the ignition source… STATIC ELECTRICITY!  SAFTENG Members be sure to check out the posts earlier this year of a very similar incident that was caught on camera (Transferring flammable…...

There is a sound reason why OSHA’s Flammable Liquid Standard has required a deadman valve for over 40 years and it is the same reason why I have written about their use for 20 years… When things go bad and you need to get the heck out of dodge quickly, you can do so AND…...

SAFTENG NOTE:  Please do NOT misunderstand what is being said here.  This study was in NO WAY an endorsement that cell phones are safe for hazardous locations.  What is being said, is that cell phones do not cause gasoline fueling fires; which we have debunked that myth here for over a decade.  Static electricity generated…...

This video is about as picture-perfect as we can get to show us how static is an ignition source.  The plastic rolls (commonly called expandable polystyrene or EPS for short is made with Pentane, a highly flammable CAT 1 gas that is heavier than air and has a Minimum Ignition Energy of just 0.22 mJ.  When…...

Technical Tip Tuesday… nitrogen is NOT heavier than air! In fact, pure Nitrogen gas is LIGHTER (~3% lighter) than the Oxygen and Argon (with the Nitrogen) that make up our atmosphere. It is perfectly mixed in the air. Hence the air we are breathing right now (assuming you’re on the surface of the earth) is 78%…...