Seminar

Live Webinar: Thermal Analysis for Safety Evaluation of Chemical Processes

Introduction to Thermal Analysis for Safety Assessment in the Chemical Industry

Program Overview

  • Basic concepts of safety analysis (i.e. time to maximum rate, criticality of a reaction)
  • Thermal analysis and reaction calorimetry applications
  • Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) instrumentation and applications
  • Thermogravimetry (TGA) instrumentation and applications
  • Summary

Over the last few decades severe accidents have occurred in chemical production plants leading to high casualties and significant impacts on the environment. In many cases, thermal runaway reactions were the primary cause of such accidents. Using thermal analysis and reaction calorimetry, thermal safety aspects of chemicals and of chemical processes can be assessed and thermal hazards can be identified at an early stage of process development.

This webinar describes the various uses of thermal analysis for safety assessment in the chemical industry. We will show how thermal analysis is applied to investigate hazardous compounds and perform safety studies. We will present some typical examples of samples measured by DSC and TGA.

Thermal Analysis for Safety Assessment

In general, DSC is used if the focus is on thermal safety aspects of individual chemicals. Reaction calorimetry is used to provide safety information with respect to processing, for example, it allows us to determine the heat flows that occur during the dosing of reactants or during stirring.

The main applications for TGA have to do with evaporation, desorption and vaporization behavior, thermal stability, and the kinetics of decomposition.
Information about the products evolved during a decomposition reaction can be obtained if the TGA is combined with an evolved-gas-analysis technique such as FTIR, MS, or GC-MS. In addition, the DSC signal simultaneously recorded with some of METTLER TOLEDO's TGA instruments measures the melting point or melting range of a material.