Petrochemical industry

In general, there are five main stages with a chemical risk in the petrochemical industry:

1. Production
   Accidents can occur when handling chemicals or adding chemical reagents. Strong acids such as hydrofluoric acid (HF), sulphuric acid (H2SO4) or potassium hydroxide (KOH) are used in the alkylation process for example. However, various solvents such as phenol, toluene, methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) can also be found for the production of base oil. Ammonia is often used as a refrigerant to cool products (called cooling), and caustic soda and amine to remove impurities (such as hydrogen and sulfides).
2. Inspection
   Accidents occur often due to the handling of errors during testing or analysis of products (collection, dosing…) and sampling.
3. Storage
   The main source of incidents is primarily related to the transfer of chemicals from one container to another.
4. Maintenance
   Accidents are observed during draining, cleaning, sanitizing and purging of pipes. The main causes of accidents are chemical splashes due, for example, to pipe or valve disassembly operations.
5. Support operations
   These are procedures that accompany the entire process of creating petrochemical products on site (energy production, wastewater treatment, sulfur recovery, production of additives, waste gas treatment, etc.). Water treatment is an example where chemicals such as hydrogen sulfide (H2S), ammonia (NH3), phenols, or benzene can be found.

In industries where the risk of chemical splashes is common, it is necessary to be able to offer efficient and fast rinsing solutions to employees. In addition, a suitable product is needed to counter the corrosive and aggressive aspects of certain chemical substances, such as hydrofluoric acid (HF).