Addressing Safety and Risk Mitigation in Academic Laboratories: a Case Study

This study addresses the critical need for effective risk assessment and mitigation strategies in academic research environments. As research laboratories engage in increasingly complex projects, ensuring the safety of personnel, equipment, and the surrounding environment becomes paramount. These settings are prone to various vulnerabilities, including manual operations, transient states, and diverse training backgrounds. This work presents a case study focusing on the potential hazards and risks associated with Fischer-Tropsch synthesis. The analysis examines critical factors such as catalyst use, high-temperature reactions, potential by-products, and the influence of human error during manual operations. Utilizing a systematic approach that incorporates interaction matrices and HAZOP analysis, the study identifies potential undesired scenarios, ranging from minor incidents to severe consequences, and evaluates their likelihood and impact. In response to the identified risks, the paper proposes targeted mitigation measures specifically designed for the Fischer-Tropsch experimental setting, structured as layers of protection. The findings of this research offer valuable insights into laboratory safety in academic settings, providing a risk assessment and mitigation model adaptable to various experimental setups. By integrating theoretical frameworks with practical applications, this study aims to enhance safety standards in academic laboratories conducting Fischer-Tropsch synthesis and establish a foundation for continuous improvement in laboratory practices

Determination of vapour pressures of FAME industrial mixtures by ebullioscopic and thermogravimetric experimental methods

Vapour pressure (VP) is a parameter that characterizes, by principle, only pure compounds. Nevertheless, it can refer also to mixtures in order to characterize their volatility or to be inserted in technical documents. The measurement of VP for mixtures is strongly dependent on the possible variation of the composition, during experiments, due to the different volatility of the constituent compounds. It is possible to calculate the VP of the mixture starting from its composition, but different thermodynamic scenarios must be considered. Moreover, for industrial samples, possible effects due to the presence of impurities must be considered. In this work, two different experimental methods have been employed to determine VP of some acetates esters and two industrial mixtures of fatty acid methyl esters (FAME). The first method is a direct ebullioscopic method, while the second is an indirect thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). An error function was calculated to compare the experimental results of VPs obtained with the two methodologies with the theoretical ones. Ebullioscopic measures resulted suitable only for acetates esters, as FAME mixtures are characterized by VPs too low to be quantified with this technique. On the contrary, TGA methodology is more accurate for FAME than acetates. It allows the collection of a great number of VP values with a very fast analysis. This method is less accurate than others, but it can be useful for a fast screening of the FAME mixtures, also contaminated with light impurities

Iron Based Nano-hydrotalcites Promoted with Cu as Catalysts for Fischer-tropsch Synthesis in Biomass to Liquid Process

Two different groups of MgCuFe catalysts derived from hydrotalcite-like precursors were prepared through ultrasound-assisted (US) co-precipitation and solvent-free ball milling methods (BM). The catalysts were activated at 623°K, 1.5 MPa for 4 h in syngas, and their performances in the production of fuels through Fischer–Tropsch (FT) synthesis were evaluated in a fixed bed reactor at temperatures ranging from 473° to 573°K and 2 MPa and H2/CO molar ratio of 2. The physicochemical properties of the fresh and spent catalysts were investigated and characterized using different methods, including XRPD, ICP-OES, SEM, and TEM. Catalysts displayed similar catalytic activity for both BM and US with minor differences when operating at temperatures from 473° to 523°K. The results hint at the possibility of using synthetic hydrotalcites as Fe-based catalysts for the Fischer–Tropsch synthesi

Hydrogen Purification and Odorization to Evaluate the Distribution of This Energy Carrier Through the Gas Pipelines

Due to hydrogen storage and transport problem, a concrete and immediate solution is the exploitation of the gas pipelines now used for natural gas. In this regard, this work aims to evaluate two main aspects that must be taken into account to make this approach possible: the separation of hydrogen from natural gas-hydrogen mixture and the odorization of the latter, in order to provide the safety of the pipelines. Therefore, the first part of this study is the evaluation of the efficiency of a purification system in presence of a variable quantity of methane in the inner stream. For these purposes, electrochemical hydrogen compression (EHC) system was selected, due to the great advantage of allowing both purification and compression in a single device. Different methane-hydrogen mixtures were taken into consideration, going to evaluate how an increasing amount of methane affects the efficiency of the system. The second part of this work is focused on a further development of a previous simulation study related to a possible process for natural gas-hydrogen mixtures odorization systems using AVEVA's PRO II software. As odorant, GASODOR S-FREE was taken into consideration, thanks to the fact that this is a common odorant used for methane with the great advantage of not containing sulfur, unlike THT and mercaptans

Study of Different H2/CO2 Ratios as Feed in Fischer-Tropsch Reactor with Iron-Based Nano-Hydrotalcite Catalysts

CO2-FTS is among the most viable methods for converting CO2 into useful chemicals and fuels in order to minimize CO2 emissions. Due to its chemical inertness, however, effective conversion continues to be a difficulty. The challenges in terms of yield and mechanism have attracted the interest of different research groups in the development of a new carbon dioxide hydrogenation catalysts, capable of reaching satisfactory results. In this work, a selection of nano ternary hydrotalcites (HTlc) were synthesized with and without ultrasound in order to develop active Fe-based catalysts for the Fischer–Tropsch synthesis. HTlc consists mostly of metal hydroxides in which different metal atoms are uniformly distributed at the atomic level. The reaction was carried in a lab scale plant in a fixed bed configuration. All fresh and used catalysts were examined and characterized using XRPD, ICP-OES, SEM, TEM, BET. Ternary HTlc composed of Mg, Cu, and Fe was synthesized using an ultrasound-assisted co-precipitation technique (MCF-US). HTlc was tested for carbon dioxide hydrogenation reaction with a study concerning different H2/CO2 ratios in order to evaluate the product distribution as well as the efficiency of the catalyst itself. The CO2 conversion resulted higher and more stable in feeds with higher H2 quantities. The selectivity towards higher chain hydrocarbons was higher for lower H2/CO2 ratios whereas methane and carbon monoxide selectivities were adequately low

Simulated-Experimental Cross Validation of Multistage Batch Distillation for Water/Propylene Glycol Separation as Educational Exercise

This study describes an educational exercise concerning the multistage batch distillation of the mixture water-propylen glycol (PG). The research study consisted of three primary components: practical experimentation using a batch distillation setup, computer simulations, utilizing the AVEVA PRO/IITM software, and the development and operation of a multistage system. The initial experiment was centred around the process of distillation involving mixtures of n-heptane/toluene and water/PG. This phase aimed to establish a fundamental understanding that would be crucial for conducting further simulations using the AVEVA PRO/IITM platform. The utilisation of these simulations is the basic background in customizing the design and optimizing the performance parameters of the multistage distillation plant, hence guaranteeing the highest possible level of separation efficiency

Metallosilicates as an iron support to catalyze Fischer-Tropsch synthesis

Metallosilicates are tunable molecular sieves that have been applied in Fischer-Tropsch synthesis as supports and promoters of cobalt-based catalysts. Here, for the first time, we synthesize iron based catalysts over Ce, Zr, V, and Ti metallosilicates with an nonhydrolytic surfactant assisted sol–gel method adapted from literature. The catalysts were activated at 350 ∘C, 0.4 MPa for 4 h in syngas (H2:CO = 2). The reactor operated at 2 MPa and from 200 ∘C 350 ∘C for 90 h at a feed ratio (H2:CO = 2). The BET surface area of Fe/Zr/SiO2 was highest at (335 m2 g−1) followed by Fe/Ti/SiO2 at 228 m2g −1. Despite its low surface area, (54 m2 g − 1), Fe/Ce/SiO2 converted the most CO (68%)while the Fe/Ti/SiO2, converted the least of the CO at 7%. CO conversion increased with temperature for all catalysts. Product selectivity to C7+ (corresponding to the α = 0.72) exceeded 60% for all catalysts and was highest at 250∘. The C2+ selectivity follows the order V (18%) < Ti (20%) < Zr (52%) < Ce (68%). The catalyst activity was stable up to 120 h on stream