Guidelines for Safe Handling of Powders and Bulk Solids

Powders and bulk solids, handled widely in the chemical, pharmaceutical, agriculture, smelting, and other industries present unique fire, explosion, and toxicity hazards. Indeed, substances which are practically inert in consolidated form may become quite hazardous when converted to powders and granules. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board is currently investigating dust explosions that occured in 2003 at WestPharma, CTA Acoustics, and Hayes-Lemmerz, and is likely to recommend that companies that handle powders or whose operations produce dust pay more attention to understanding the hazards that may exist at their facility. This new CCPS guidelines book will discuss the types of hazards that can occur in a wide range of process equipment and with a wide range of substances, and will present measures to address these hazards.

The CENTER FOR CHEMICAL PROCESS SAFETY (CCPS), an industry technology alliance of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), has been a world leader in developing and disseminatinginformation on process safety management and technology since 1985. CCPS has published over 80 books in its process safety guidelines and process safety concepts series. For more information, visit www.ccpsonline.org.