Safer Chemistry for Accident Prevention

The twelfth and final principle is to develop chemical processes that are inherently safer and that minimise the risk of accidents such as explosions, fires and harmful emissions. In practice, this means selecting the substances used in a chemical reaction -- and the physical form those substances are handled in -- specifically to minimise the chance of such accidents occurring. The chapter's illustrating comparison is between gaseous and non-gaseous process chemistry: if a chemical process works with gaseous substances, the possibility of accidents including explosion is relatively higher compared with an equivalent system that instead works with non-volatile liquid or solid substances, because gases are more easily released, more easily ignited or dispersed, and generally harder to contain safely than a liquid or solid handled under the same conditions. Choosing, wherever …