Under certain conditions, reactive chemicals may proceed into uncontrolled chemical reaction pathways with rapid and significant increases in temperature, pressure, and/or gas evolution. Reactive chemicals have been involved in many industrial incidents, and have harmed people, property, and the environment. Evaluation of reactive chemical hazards is critical to design and operate safer chemical plant processes. Much effort is needed for experimental techniques, mainly calorimetric analysis, to measure thermal reactivity of chemical systems. Studying all the various reaction pathways experimentally however is very expensive and time consuming. Therefore, it is essential to employ simplified screening tools and other methods to reduce the number of experiments and to identify the most energetic pathways. A systematic approach is presented for the evaluation of reactive chemical hazards. This approach is based on a combination of computational methods, correlations, and experimental thermal analysis techniques. The presented approach will help to focus the experimental work to the most hazardous reaction scenarios with a better understanding of the reactive system chemistry. Computational methods are used to predict reaction stoichiometries, thermodynamics, and kinetics, which then are used to exclude thermodynamically infeasible and non-hazardous reaction pathways. Computational methods included: (1) molecular group contribution methods, (2) computational quantum chemistry methods, and (3) correlations based on thermodynamic-energy relationships. The experimental techniques are used to evaluate the most energetic systems for more accurate thermodynamic and kinetics parameters, or to replace inadequate numerical methods. The Reactive System Screening Tool (RSST) and the Automatic Pressure Tracking Adiabatic Calorimeter (APTAC) were employed to evaluate the reactive systems experimentally. The RSST detected exothermic behavior and measured the overall liberated energy. The APTAC simulated near-adiabatic runaway scenarios for more accurate thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. The validity of this approach was investigated through the evaluation of potentially hazardous reactive systems, including decomposition of di-tert-butyl peroxide, copolymerization of styrene-acrylonitrile, and polymerization of 1,3-butadiene.

Cumene hydroperoxide (CHP), a type of organic peroxide, is widely used in the chemical industry for diverse applications. However, it decomposes and undergoes highly exothermic runaway reactions under high temperature because of its unstable peroxide functional group. The risk of runaway reaction is intensified by the fact that operation temperature of CHP is close to its onset temperature in many cases. To ensure safe handling of CHP in the chemical industry, a lot of research has been done on it including theoretical research at the microscopic level and experimental research at the macroscopic level. However, the unstable radicals in the CHP decomposition reactions make it difficult to study its reaction pathway, and therefore lead to incomplete understanding of the reaction mechanism. The slow progress in theoretical research hinders the application of the theoretical prediction in experimental research. For experimental research, the lack of integration of operational parameters into the reactivity evaluation limits its application in industrial process. In this thesis, a systematic methodology is proposed to evaluate the reactivity hazards of CHP. This methodology is a combination of theoretical research using computational quantum chemistry method and experimental research using RSSTTM. The theoretical research determined the dominant reaction pathway of CHP decomposition reaction through the study of thermodynamic and kinetic stability, which was applied to the analysis of experimental results. The experimental research investigated the effect of CHP concentration on runaway reactions by analyzing the important parameters including temperature, pressure, self-heat rate and pressure rate. This methodology could also be applied to other organic peroxides or other reactive chemicals. The results of theoretical research on reaction mechanism show that there is a dominant reaction pathway, which consumes most of the CHP in decomposition reaction. This conclusion agrees with the experimental results that 40 wt% is a critical point for almost all important parameters of runaway reactions. In the high concentration range above 40 wt%, some unknown reaction pathways are involved in decomposition of CHP because of lack of cumene. The shift of reaction mechanism causes the change of the effect of concentration on runaway reactions.

Under certain conditions, reactive chemicals may proceed into uncontrolled chemical reaction pathways with rapid and significant increases in temperature, pressure, and/or gas evolution. Reactive chemicals have been involved in many industrial incidents, and have harmed people, property, and the environment. Evaluation of reactive chemical hazards is critical to design and operate safer chemical plant processes. Much effort is needed for experimental techniques, mainly calorimetric analysis, to measure thermal reactivity of chemical systems. Studying all the various reaction pathways experimentally however is very expensive and time consuming. Therefore, it is essential to employ simplified screening tools and other methods to reduce the number of experiments and to identify the most energetic pathways. A systematic approach is presented for the evaluation of reactive chemical hazards. This approach is based on a combination of computational methods, correlations, and experimental thermal analysis techniques. The presented approach will help to focus the experimental work to the most hazardous reaction scenarios with a better understanding of the reactive system chemistry. Computational methods are used to predict reaction stoichiometries, thermodynamics, and kinetics, which then are used to exclude thermodynamically infeasible and non-hazardous reaction pathways. Computational methods included: (1) molecular group contribution methods, (2) computational quantum chemistry methods, and (3) correlations based on thermodynamic-energy relationships. The experimental techniques are used to evaluate the most energetic systems for more accurate thermodynamic and kinetics parameters, or to replace inadequate numerical methods. The Reactive System Screening Tool (RSST) and the Automatic Pressure Tracking Adiabatic Calorimeter (APTAC) were employed to evaluate the reactive systems experimentally. The RSST detected exothermic behavior and measured the overall liberated energy. The APTAC simulated near-adiabatic runaway scenarios for more accurate thermodynamic and kinetic parameters. The validity of this approach was investigated through the evaluation of potentially hazardous reactive systems, including decomposition of di-tert-butyl peroxide, copolymerization of styrene-acrylonitrile, and polymerization of 1,3-butadiene.