We have tons to still learn from this event, but under the current economic conditions due to the virus, India has been in “lockdown” for five (5) weeks. This incident, happened last night, lends itself to being a “polymerization event” based on the video and photographic evidence I have seen from my India members. The ONLY way to Styrene to vent like that is during a polymerization event. Based on the external facts we know and the company’s press release I will be surprised if this is anything by a polymerization event – although there are already cries of foul play at work. What is Styrene and how does it polymerize?
I am not a Chemist or a Chemical Engineer, but I have directly worked with and responded to many Styrene incidents in my years. This is a layman’s explanation – not intended to be a fully encompassed explanation of Styrene.
Styrene is a flammable and carcinogenic liquid. It is shipped and stored with an “Inhibitor” mixed into it to keep it stable. This inhibitor is both TIME and TEMPERATURE dependent; meaning that it will not last forever and under hotter temps, it will lose its ability to work faster than under cooler temps. Once the inhibitor is gone, Styrene will begin to polymerize at around 106°F. This polymerization is an EXOTHERMIC reaction which means it generates a lot of heat, which then feeds to speed up the reaction, thus this is considered to be a “runway-reaction”. Yes, with Styrene, all we have to do is let it sit long enough and it will react with itself per se and that reaction is extremely hazardous while inside a container, as well as the vapors coming off the reaction are flammable and toxic.
In the case of this Styrene Incident, we have a plant that had been shut down for a period of time due to the virus lockdown in India. The nation had been on lockdown for 5 weeks, but I am not sure how long this plant had been shut down or what was going on the weeks prior to its shutting down. The company’s press release stated that the plant was shut down at the time, but there was a maintenance crew on site. In fact, the company stated… “a night shift maintenance worker had discovered the leak from a tank”. This tells me that the company was taking advantage of the downtime and doing some maintenance work on-site, but who knows if they had any operators on-site monitoring these Styrene storage tanks. Or if they were monitoring the temps and pressures remotely. The temperatures in India were as hot as 110°F yesterday, but from what I can see using Google, the temps in the area of this plant were only in the upper 90’s.
With styrene having an initiation temperature of 106°F, with ambient temperatures that were pushing those limits.
So we may have our first catastrophic event stemming directly from our pandemic response. Only time and a thorough investigation will tell, but my $ is on a polymerization event due to lack of inhibitor over time and temperature extremes.