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Chemicals are an everyday part of operating a biorefinery facility as we learned in Part 1 of Biorefinery Safety Series. Chemicals are also an integral part of biodiesel production. Therefore, it is vitally important that all employees at a biodiesel facility, whether a large operation on a small backyard operation, learn, practice and live safe methanol handling techniques. So today, Part 2 of the Biorefinery Plant Safety Series is going to look how to safely handle methanol.

To learn more, I spoke with Greg Dolan with the Methanol Institute. The association does a lot of work with the National Biodiesel Board because methanol is a key component in biodiesel production.

A gallon of biodiesel is on average between 10-15 percent methanol, said Dolan who explained that you take the oil, could be soybean oil or vegetable oil, add methanol, then add a catalyst and you produce biodiesel. Part of the end product will be some waste methanol and some glycerin and with some production technologies, that methanol can be put back into the front end of the process.

What happens if you don’t handle the methanol safely? Things go boom.

Dolan said methanol is a flammable and toxic chemical and methanol has to be handled properly. “Some of the same precautions we use handling gasoline are also used in handling methanol. For instance, you need to use the proper materials for storage. There are specific guidelines for unloading and loading of methanol at a facility. You also need to pay attention from doing any hot work around any methanol storage. That is something you really want to stay away from. Most accidents we’ve seen at biodiesel facilities result in doing hot work around methanol storage,” he said.

Listen to my interview with Greg Dolan here: Ethanol Safety Series Part II: Methanol Safe Handling Read More

I’ve spent the last few weeks speaking with people in the biorefining industry in an effort to learn more about safety issues and best practices. The result is a series on Biorefinery Plant Safety and part one focuses on chemical safety. Chemicals are a necessary component of producing ethanol or biodiesel. On the ethanol side, some plants use chlorine dioxide or sulfuric acid in various aspects of the process – both in fermentation (to kill infections) and as a cleaning agent. On the biodiesel side, methanol is a commonly used.

Many things can happen when working with chemicals – slips, burns, fires, and explosions- and the biofuels industry has not been immune from any of these issues. While no one would tell me exactly what has caused some recent fires or explosions, I believe understanding cause and effect of mishandling chemicals/or properly handling chemicals, should reduce chemical accidents.

To learn more, I spoke with Scott Berger, with the Center for Chemical Process Safety, formed by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Their goal is to improve guidelines and improve practices to prevent major chemical accidents such as fires, explosions and toxic gas release. Formed in 1985, they have published more than 100 guidelines with the work being done by their 140 plus members in the chemical, refining, biorefining, and other similar manufacturing businesses.

Berger noted that it doesn’t matter which chemical you decide to use in your facility, every material has a hazard. “If you don’t respect that hazard, don’t identify that hazard, don’t manage the hazard properly, then you can have a problem.”

What is the right way to communicate chemical safety? Berger said the first thing is that management has to recognize that they’re dealing with hazardous materials and then they have to commit that they are going to manage those hazards. He said because without that recognition and that commitment, nothing will happen. From there they need to implement a management system for managing the hazardous materials and the hazardous process.

Listen to my interview with Scott Berger here: Ethanol Safety Series Part I: How to Properly Handle Chemicals in a BiorefineryRead More