Industrial Safety
“There are old fluorine chemists and there are careless fluorine
chemists, but there are no old careless fluorine chemists”
Explosion at Japanese fluorine chemistry plant kills four workers
Four workers doing maintenance died when a
tank used to store boron trifluoride blew up on
Dec. 24, 2009, at a Morita Chemical plant in
Osaka, Japan. The firm has appointed a
committee of experts to find out what caused the
accident.
At the time of the accident, the workers were
sawing a hole into the tank to remove sludge
that had been created while the vessel was being
cleaned with water, the company told Japanese
media. Company officials said there was no BF3
in the vessel when cleaning started.
BF3 is a gas widely used as a catalyst in organic
synthesis. It is not described as explosive in the
material safety data sheets of BASF, Air
Liquide, and Praxair, three other companies that
produce it.
KYODO/AP
But BF3 reacts with water to form hydrogen fluoride, a toxic and unstable gas, says
Yongxin Han, head of chemistry at the drug discovery services firm Chemizon, in
Beijing. It’s possible that the explosion was caused by excessive buildup of gas pressure,
he speculates. Allan Hong, a partner at Shanghai-based China cGMP Group, an auditor of
drug manufacturing plants, says moisture in the air is enough for BF3 to generate HF.
Consistent with a gas buildup scenario, no signs of combustion are visible in photos of
the accident scene (shown). Morita has focused on fluorine chemistry since it was
founded in 1917.
Chemical & Engineering News, p.9, Jan 11, 2010.
ISSN 0009-2347
Copyright © 2010 American Chemical Society