Baxenden Chemicals Ltd

Baxenden Chemicals Limited

News

Baxenden Invests In New Reactor Venting System

Baxenden Chemicals has recently installed a new reactor venting system at its Accrington, UK site. The installation, costing in excess of £1M, was part of an assessment of site arrangements for pressure relief. The new equipment is designed to safely relieve reactor over pressurization and includes reactor relief vents, new catch tanks with cyclonic separators and a vent cooler with a dispersion stack.

The two-year project, which was monitored by the Health and Safety Executive, followed an exothermic reaction hazards study to ensure that the reactors were safe both for existing and new processes.

The review considered the arrangements for pressure relief arising from either an isolated process incident such as reaction runaway, or a more widespread incident such as plant fire.  It examined the entire polymer manufacturing facility, potential hazards arising from adjacent on-site operations such as warehousing and the potential off-site effects arising from pressure relief.

Baxenden continues to invest in upgrading its facilities to improve product quality, safety and efficiency and is currently working on improving reactor instrumentation and data acquisition.  As a result of changing legislation Baxenden became a COMAH (Control of Major Accident Hazards) top tier site in 2005 and has submitted a detailed safety case document to the Health and Safety Executive.

With its expertise in polyurethane technology Baxenden Chemicals is an established presence in the urethane chemicals market. The company has an innovative portfolio of products. In addition to polyurethanes the company also manufactures polyesters, acrylic polymers, acrylic emulsions and other speciality chemicals.