Vinyl Chloride Plant Accident

An explosion at a vinyl chloride monomer ethylene plant in mexico on april 20 killed 13 people and may impact the country s chloralkali industry.

Vinyl chloride plant accident.

Chemical manufacturing fire and explosion investigation status. About 13 billion kilograms are produced annually. Updated april 21 4 p m. The accident forced area residents and plant workers to shelter in place for several hours shut roads and even led to the closure of a 45 mile section of the mississippi river.

Illiopolis il accident occured on. For some reason they forgot to mention in their. Vinyl chloride is used primarily to make polyvinyl chloride pvc. The trend in modern petrochemical operations is to reduce staffing to the point that in emergencies or during strikes an entire plant can be operated safely from.

It does not occur naturally and must be produced industrially for its commercial uses. The csb s final report on this investigation was issued at a news conference in springfield illinois on march 6 2007. First one can ask why there were so many people in a hazardous area. Pvc is used to make a variety of plastic products including pipes wire and cable coatings and packaging materials.

Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas at normal temperatures. It is flammable burns easily as a gas and is not stable at high temperatures. Formosa plastics vinyl chloride explosion location. The accident took place just one week before the vinyl institute was in nyc arguing pvc was perfectly safe.

The following operations are active. Chloride and hydrochloric acid through the community. Whether or not vinyl chloride itself was released the high death toll says several things about this accident. Vinyl chloride is a colorless gas that burns easily.

It is also known as chloroethene chloroethylene ethylene monochloride or monochloroethylene. Tosoh sgm corporation located in the vicinity of the no 2 vinyl chloride monomer plant quartz materials manufacturing subsidiary tosoh sgm corporation sustained damage to its synthetic quartz manufacturing facilities and its shipping department in the accident but has recovered and operations are gradually restarting. Vinyl chloride is most often used to make polyvinyl chloride a plastic that s used to make shower curtains cling wrap pipes carpeting packaging material and all sorts of other items. 04 23 2004 final report released on.