Posted on 07/28/2021 6:52:46 AM PDT by deport
At least two people are dead and seven are injured after a chemical leak at a plant at a Houston suburb Tuesday night, company officials said.
The incident involved a "very small" acetic acid leak within the LyondellBasell facility in the La Porte Complex east of Houston, said Harris County Fire Marshal Laurie Christensen in a news conference.
The incident began at about 7:35 p.m. when "LyondellBasell La Porte requested support from La Porte EMS regarding a mass casualty incident at their facility," La Porte's public information officer Lee Woodward told CNN.
(Excerpt) Read more at houstonchronicle.com ...
I worked at a vinyl chloride plant on Miller Cutoff Rd.in the 80s.
acetic acid, AKA ‘vinegar’..................
Yep gotta watch that vinegar. Don’t overdose.
Your ‘table vinegar’ is diluted to 4% acidity.
Imagine how 100% must smell!.........................
Acetic acid also has an LEL of 4% and an STEL of 15 PPM. It requires two different monitoring systems for each threshold. I suspect they only had combustible monitors which wouldn’t be able to detect down to the toxic level (1% LEL = 400 PPM).
It may be like hydrogen sulfide which deadens your smell at high concentrations. That means that just because you can't smell it doesn't mean its not present. In the oil patch, all are required to wear personal H2S monitors while on a job site.
Glacial Acetic Acid is 28 % , and I do not think you can go higher in %.
I had to go look it up. It has been over 40 years since freshman chemistry. Glacial Acetic Acid is 100 %, or anhydrous. I do not remember the smell to that overpowering such as Butyric Acid is. That is rotten egg smell.
I had to go look it up. It has been over 40 years since freshman chemistry. Glacial Acetic Acid is 100 %, or anhydrous. I do not remember the smell to that overpowering such as Butyric Acid is. That is rotten egg smell.
I had to go look it up. It has been over 40 years since freshman chemistry. Glacial Acetic Acid is 100 %, or anhydrous. I do not remember the smell to that overpowering such as Butyric Acid is. That is rotten egg smell.
Some people like the smell, not me though.
Next time you order a salad at a restaurant, and the server asks what kind of dressing you want, just say, “A homogenous mixture of distilled Acetic and Oleic Acids ......
(Vinegar and Olive oil)..................
I will try that, but if he is a chemistry major he might embarrass me!
If he is a chemistry major he will give you what your ordered!...................
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