Inherent Safety Process Assessment in the Initial Phase of the Chemical Design Process:The Case of Acetic Acid Production Process

In the initial phase of the process design using the principles of inherent safety is much more efficient, because it was cheaper and more efficient process to be included. In this research have been tried to introduce a comprehensive index to assessment of the process inherent safety. Then using indices evaluated inherent safety Acetic Acid production process and the accuracy of the indexes have been studied.
While the comprehensive information is not available in the initial phase of the design process. Also, the use of the valid index to assess the inherent safety can be very effective. Why so, by comparing the quantitative results can be selected the best route, in order to design safer process.
The main reaction heat, the greatest amount of heat adverse reactions, flammable, explosive and toxic vulnerability, corrosion and finally chemical interactions and the process safety indexes of inherent safety (storage of materials, process temperature, process pressure, safety equipment).
Overall rating index inherent safety in the production of Acetic Acid and in part of the distillation was estimated 29 and 19 respectively. In the other words, the distillation process in contrast to reactions was safer.