The development of modern industry, petroleum refining and other industries has provided more and more new materials and new products for mankind, bringing great convenience and progress to our lives. But with it comes more and more toxic and hazardous substances that endanger the health of operators and the surrounding environment.
These toxic and harmful substances can be solid waste, sewage and gas, etc. In a sense, toxic and hazardous gas injuries are probably one of the most serious hazards because they diffuse and are absorbed by workers more directly and quickly than solids and liquids. In addition to the inorganic gases we commonly see in industrial safety: carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, nitrogen oxides, etc., these toxic and harmful organic substances have also begun to attract widespread attention.
Toxic and harmful gases can cause immediate harm to the respiratory system, nervous system, and even death through the human respiratory system. The dire results of the leak of organic gas in Palme, India, which killed thousands and killed tens of thousands, are a wake-up call for effective prevention of dangerous gases. In addition, working for a long time in an environment of inorganic, organic vapor and its volatiles can cause lifelong hazards to workers, such as the strong carcinogenic properties of low concentrations of benzene are well-known industrial hygiene problems.
When all kinds of emergency accidents occur, quickly confirm protective measures, find leakage points, delineate the scope of pollution, and estimate the development trend of accidents are the primary conditions for accident handling. Therefore, on-site low-concentration and continuous monitoring of various gas components should become a necessary means to protect the health of workers and equipment safety by safety, fire protection, labor and health, environment and other departments at all levels.
Still, there is much to be learned about and improved in our current understanding of gas detection. People's habitual forces, the lack of testing methods, and even our backwardness in industry regulations have greatly affected our detection of toxic and harmful gases in actual production activities, which is reflected in:
Focus on the detection of flammable gas and ignore the detection of toxic gas.
Focus on the detection of toxic gas bodies that may cause acute and medium toxic gases and ignore the detection of gases that may cause chronic poisoning.
Focus on toxic gas detection and neglect oxygen deficiency detection
Focus on the detection of a single gas and ignore the simultaneous detection of multiple gases
focus on gas detection before work and ignore gas detection during work, etc
It can be said that in any petrochemical or chemical plant, the vast majority of dangerous gas detectors are catalytic combustion flammable gas detectors (LEL）。 But only equippedLELDetectors are still far from enough to truly protect the safety and health of workers. It is undeniable that most organic volatile hazardous gases are flammable gases, butLELSpecifically designed for testing methane, not all flammable gas assays are the best choice. It is much higher than their allowable concentration for detecting flammable gases other than methane, so it is very dangerous to use Flammable gas detectors alone for dangerous toxic organic gases such as aromatic hydrocarbons, halogenated hydrocarbons, esters, etc.
At present, most factories pay more attention to the detection of gases that can cause acute poisoning, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen sulfide, cyanohydroic acid, etc., but do not pay enough attention to the detection of gases that can cause chronic poisoning, such as aromatic hydrocarbons, alcohols, esters, etc., in fact, the latter is no less harmful to the health and safety of workers than gases that can cause acute poisoning! They can cause cancer and other invisible diseases that affect the lifespan and health of workers.
The phenomenon of oxygen deficiency is also often encountered in our real work. The oxygen consumed by the death of a small rat in a closed deep well is enough to suffocate those who enter! And the local lack of oxygen caused by insufficient ventilation will also put people to death.
There are many types of gases produced by various chemical processes, and we cannot avoid injury accidents by paying attention to just one of them. A storage tank for benzene compounds may not have flammable and explosive gases in it, oxygen is sufficient, but only residual volatile benzene vapors can also harm workers entering it.
Due to personnel activities and changes in temperature and humidity, the types and concentrations of gases during work are constantly changing. For example, the increase in temperature in a confined space may cause the volatilization of some components that were originally liquids, and routine testing just before the worker enters may miss these constant changes, and the gas caused by different gas specific gravities"Layering"Continuous gas detection in real time is also required.
With the development of science and technology and the improvement of people's health awareness, people are no longer satisfied with just that"Come to work happily and go home safely", but pursues a higher quality of life and living conditions. People care not only about today's work, but also about tomorrow----Life after retirement. Therefore, in industrial hygiene and industrial safety work, it is necessary to constantly introduce new concepts and new ideas in order not only to avoid immediate dangers, but also to avoid future tragedies, all of which need to be continuously improved and improved through the formulation of laws and regulations and the improvement of people's quality.