IDENTIFICATION OF POTENTIAL THERMAL RUNAWAYS USING SMALL-SCALE THERMAL ANALYTICAL TECHNIQUES

With industry's focus on the early identification of potential thermal runaways in chemical processes, it is important that these potential thermal hazards be identified early in a process' development. Thermal runaways can be initiated in several ways: through an uncontrolled he at of reaction, the initiation of an exothermic decomposition/oxidatio n, or a combination of these two. It is therefore critical that inform ation on exothermic decomposition/oxidation and heat of reaction be ea sily obtainable using small scale laboratory reactions. A small scale thermal hazards identification program, using process samples from a 2 00 mi reaction and small scale thermal analytical techniques, identifi es potential thermal runaways rapidly. The small scale thermal hazards identification program utilizes three smalt scale thermal analytical techniques developed at the Merck Research Laboratories. These include the use of specially designed DSC reusable metal crucibles to identif y dosed system exothermic activity in process samples, the Small Scale Isothermal Age Technique to accurately determine exothermic onset tem peratures and Syringe Injection calorimetry to determine heat of react ions which occur at room temperature.