The Mysteries of Ammonia!

[hendry]

further to earlier story-telling ....

the designs are not developed by local ....

added to it, the project team allows ammonia piping in enclosed space installation ... crawling distance end-to-end of aprox. 20 feet.

more to it, [be careful, someone is watching ...] i was like a tour guide showing someone around [in chemical suits] & narate the situation/s.

i was offered chemical suits but i declared that i wasn't trained but with prior fire rescue experience, we went in ...

by the way, the white smoke was about 4 ~ 5 feet from us during the "tour" .... we are slightly on higher ground approx. 2 ~ 3 feet.

my meaning of experience is "the process".

to me, heaven & hell do not have differences. i can be in heaven but ill-treated. contrary, i may be in hell now but highly praise!

eventually, the most important lesson, the company does not deserve all parties' helps on that day ...

[Josip]

Hi, hendry

I see,

more to it, [be careful, someone is watching ...] i was like a tour guide showing someone around [in chemical suits] & narate the situation/s.

....hope you got a chance to improve something there...maybe to replace the whole plant with ***** type

Best regards, Josip

[TXiceman]

Hi, hendry

I see,



....hope you got a chance to improve something there...maybe to replace the whole plant with ***** type

Best regards, Josip

Now why in the world would you want to replace an NH3 plant with *****.....Better to learn how to handle the ammonia properly.

Ken

[Josip]

Hi, TX Iceman

Now why in the world would you want to replace an NH3 plant with *****.....Better to learn how to handle the ammonia properly.

Ken

I'm sorry Ken, you miss my point, please read my sentence again...I wanted to say something else....I was not serious.........usually ***** guys take opportunity (if there is some small ammonia leak) and suggest to owner to replace ammonia plant with "the perfect one, with green *****-no smell, no harmful, energy saving.....etc, a lot of bull s**t", but you know stories like that

Better to learn how to handle the ammonia properly.

....agree 100%....

I'm definitely the last guy who will suggest replacing ammonia with any ***** for industrial use, something like that for me is a criminal act.....please check my posts regarding ammonia...

Best regards, Josip

[IceMan_4000]

Hi, hendry

I see,



....hope you got a chance to improve something there...maybe to replace the whole plant with ***** type

Best regards, Josip

Wow that is kind of miss directed. 20PPM of ammonia and most will not enter a room cause it is to harsh. a ***** plant that size with a big leak you can just go clean up the bodies when the leak is done. Because the human body can not tell how much ***** is in the air untill you go down from suffication.

Give me a NH3 plant any day

[Josip]

Hi, IceMan_4000

Welcome to RE forums...

Wow that is kind of miss directed. 20PPM of ammonia and most will not enter a room cause it is to harsh. a ***** plant that size with a big leak you can just go clean up the bodies when the leak is done. Because the human body can not tell how much ***** is in the air untill you go down from suffication.

Give me a NH3 plant any day

are you sure....this was a kind of "black humor" you should carefully read the whole thread.......I'm definitely ammonia guy...

Best regards, Josip

[IceMan_4000]

Hi, IceMan_4000

Welcome to RE forums...



are you sure....this was a kind of "black humor" you should carefully read the whole thread.......I'm definitely ammonia guy...

Best regards, Josip

Thanks Josip never said you were not a ammonia guy

Oh I read the thread, I was just trying to state the built in safety system NH3 has vs the displacement factor of the others.


I think I am going to have to slow my Typing down, I have already got a couple of neck fur's up


it must be my Canadian to euorpean dictonary.


IceMan_4000

[Josip]

Hi, IceMan_4000

Thanks Josip never said you were not a ammonia guy

Oh I read the thread, I was just trying to state the built in safety system NH3 has vs the displacement factor of the others.


I think I am going to have to slow my Typing down, I have already got a couple of neck fur's up


it must be my Canadian to euorpean dictonary.


IceMan_4000

No problem at all ....regarding typing down it is always nice if you (sorry, all of us) use a plain English...and make reading easier.....

....many times for many of us something is not very clear if you write in slang/phrases...
....english phraseology is not easy for english spoken people, but definitely is too hard for us)

Anyhow, you are a young man and you have a time to improve a lot of things

Best regards, Josip

[US Iceman]

IceMan_4000,

I think it will also help if you watch for the emoticons used to convey a hint at the remarks left by posters. A lot of the posters here on the RE site have to translate their posts to their native language and will sometimes use the emoticons (to the right of the area where you compose the message) to add some "flavor" to their reply.

Sometimes a sense of humor is hard to interpret!

If I had to post messages in Croatian or Flemish my post count would be very small indeed.

[Grizzly]

Wow that is kind of miss directed. 20PPM of ammonia and most will not enter a room cause it is to harsh. a ***** plant that size with a big leak you can just go clean up the bodies when the leak is done. Because the human body can not tell how much ***** is in the air untill you go down from suffication.

Give me a NH3 plant any day

Iceman 4000.
Hey I get what you and Josip mean. may I put my take on what you are saying.
Using the extracted data below

"Permissible levels of exposure to toxic gases are defined by time-weighted average (TWA), short-term exposure limit (STEL), and concentration at which toxic gasses are immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH). The TWA is defined as the concentration for an 8-hour workday of a 40-hour workweek that nearly all workers can be exposed to without adverse effects. Similarly, the STEL is the concentration to which an exposure of longer than 15 minutes is potentially dangerous and may produce immediate or chronic compromise to health. Anhydrous ammonia has a TWA of 25 ppm, an STEL of 35 ppm, and an IDLH of 500 ppm."
.................................................................
The impotant issue here is the fact that an exposure of up to 25ppm is allowed when deemed necessary for up to 8 hrs, Within a working week.
Useful when the Coldstore / Loading bay workers smell Ammonia. Useually from an oil purge or line purge being carried out in a nearby Plant room.
You then get all sort of protestations, like ah! I smell Ammonia and I can't work in this etc etc.
It was so bad in 1 Cold Store where I was Site Engineer that whenever there was the slightest whiff of Ammonia ( remember the human nose can smell from 0.9ppm the average being 5ppm). The site staff would "down tools" and refuse to work. What the managment did was obtain one of those clever "Gasman" Sniffers that analised the Ammonia concentration. Producing the written Union agreed data which basically said "Anything around 25ppm was acceptable for up to 8 hrs, as stated above.
The workforce were then limited as to when they could "cry wolf".
...........................................
People repeatedly exposed to ammonia may develop a tolerance (or acclimatization) to the irritating effects after a few weeks. Tolerance means that higher levels of exposure are required to produce effects earlier seen at lower concentrations.
.......................................
This just confirms all the "Old Timer Stories"
Like Old Pete never bothered with a resperator he would sit in the middle of a gas cloud smoking his pipe!
.......................................
One VERY IMPORTANT differance between Ammonia
And *****s is:-
Because Ammonia vapour is LIGHTER than air.
The use of a carbon filter resperator (type K1, K2 or K3) will aid breathing and enable safe retreat from the leak/ danger area.
Whereas HFC/ HCFC ( *****) CO2 or similar refrigerants are HEAVIER than Air.
Therefore a Fresh air or circulation Breathing mask (B.A.) MUST BE USED TO ENABLE MOVEMENT in the leak/ danger area.
So guys don't ever in panic grab your colleagues resperator and dive in to help your mate!!
Unless it is the correct type for the job.
Personally I have entered a plant room with full chemical suit and B.A. Waded through Liquid Ammonia
to the far end of a plant room. Shut off the offending
Oil pressure gauge ( the bordon tube had split internally). And yes it was a steel tube. Causing all the oil from the sump of a Grasso RC911 to spew out across the plant room floor. Followed by probably 200kg of vapour / liquid Ammonia.
It is a strange feeling in a Chemical Suit and B.A.wading through Liquid Ammonia. With very little vapour being given off because basically it freezes the surrounding areas it contacts so quickly that there is no heat to boil off the remaining liquid.
The only remaining heat source is your boots as you walk through it!
Once isolated it was just a case of carefully setting up a water curtain and letting the ammonia disolve in the water. What you do with the water then can be discussed another time.
Whilst this was going on I had an extremely nerveous young Site manager. Kitted out in full Chemical Suit and B.A. watching from the plant room door. With strict Instruction that should anything go wrong. He was to come in and get me!
Well he thought it would be clever to do the relevant B.A. Training as well as me.
Rest assured My suit became My Suit and he kept his PHEW!
SERIOUSLY THOUGH Guys. that could of been a nasty situation but with the correct training it was all dealt with safely.
God I need a drink now!
Cheers Grizzly

[nike123]

This article has some interesting points, maybe your (and others) attitude about risk with ammonia could change after reading it.

Article is found after 2 minutes surf of results in Google search with terms "refrigerant death statistic".

Site is: http://tinyurl.com/35m922


Accidents with refrigeration fluids
Due to number of accidents with ammonia or hydrocarbons, it is necessary to look in detail at the risks associated with their use. This aspect is even more important for developing countries, because of situations like uneven maintenance, unreliable power supplies, climate conditions /Ref 1998 - ch. 12.7/.
Although sound safety training and controls might help, the extra cost needed to ensure a high health and safety level for using toxic or highly explosive material (in some cases plants have been totally destroyed) should also be taken into account.

A Working Party on Refrigerant System Safety has been set up by the International Institute For Refrigeration (IIR). Indeed, although some refrigerants have been in use for 100 years, very little documented experience exists, which makes safety assessment an issue, and therefore safety standard a challenge. IIR also considers the interest for correlating existing safety requests with experienced accidents. The Working Party aim is to document the expertise gathered by experienced engineers and to record it in an objective way. For all types of systems and all refrigerants the real number of accidents should be investigated, and a database be set up for accidents involving injuries to humans and property damages.
Source : http://www.iifiir.org/telecharg/safety.pdf
Accidents in refrigeration applications
The use of hydrocarbons and ammonia is often considered as safe, provided stringent safety measures and standards are followed. Such statements are based on risks assessments (example /Ref 1999/ Ch. 9.2.4 about hydrocarbons in road transport). However, these risk assessments are only theoretical. An IEA study /Berg 1994/ concluded that a VROM (NL) ammonia calculated risk assessment lead to a risk of deaths "10-100 times smaller than those observed.
Accidents involving ammonia

There are several reports on accidents involving ammonia/CDCIR 1992/ /Berg 1994/ Amm 1995/ / which conclude that it is difficult to collect data on all the accidents that occur. Unep 1998 compiled a list of significant accidents which contains 18 ammonia accidents.
Amm 2002/ makes a comprehensive analysis of more than 400 accidents involving ammonia between 1992 and 2001, wherefrom 109 involved ammonia. Most (but not all) of the accidents involving “Other refrigerants” actually were the consequence of a fire, rather than a leakage.
"Working Fluid Safety"/Berg 1994/ has used statistics on ammonia refrigeration accidents to derive probabilities of ammonia accidents. We have applied these probabilities to a Dutch proposal /Eco 1998/ to switch to ammonia 70 000 refrigeration systems by 2010 (instead of 150 today). The results presented in Table 5 are striking - for a population of only 15 million.

Kind of risk
Frequency
NL Probability (70 000 units)
Death
1 x 10-4
7 per year
Injury
10-30 x 10-4
70 - 210 per year
Accident
10-150 x 10-4
70 – 1 050 per year
Ammonia Risk Assessment applied to the Netherlands /Berg 94/ /Eco 98/

These risks are specially valid for smaller units, because large ammonia refrigeration units are usually surveyed 24 hours a day. For the large number of users of smaller refrigeration units, this will most often not be the case, since many units are left unattended for long periods of time.
Due to millions of refrigeration equipment world-wide including developing countries, we think that lives and environment will be better protected by not introducing ammonia outside its traditional uses.
Accidents involving Hydrocarbons

Since refrigeration accidents are due to equipment failure, poor maintenance or human factors, there is no reason to expect different accident frequencies, except that the toxicity risk would be replaced by fire and explosion risk of a hydrocarbon leakage, which can have a significant destructive force.
Again the number of installations should be kept in mind : the same Dutch report /Eco 98/ suggests switching to hydrocarbons by 2010 a number of 295.000 units containing 1 to 30 kg refrigerant, of 10.000 units containing more than 50 kg. Bearing in mind that the explosion of 1 kg hydrocarbon releases the same energy as 1 kg of TNT, we wonder if this change should not be promoted with more care for human or property losses.
The report /IIR 97/ concludes that "Expanding the use of flammable refrigerants [..] changes past safety practices and should be done with great care to ensure that the safety of the public is maintained."
Accidents involving Fluorocarbons
There is also little published data for risks related to HFCs, but some is available on use of CFCs and HCFCs. These have led to some fatalities over the years, mainly due to suffocation. This is a risk with any inert gas; e.g. engineers have died in confined areas that are full of refrigerant vapour. The number of fatalities reported is far lower than for ammonia systems, even though there are significantly more FC systems in use. The risk of fatalities with FCs is several orders of magnitude lower than for ammonia (Berg 1994).

[rkmoorthy]

hai guys i am new for this site, anybody can you send me service manual of carrier container chiller and freezer

[hendry]

haven't been there lately ...
hearsay, they found cheaper refrigeration "specialist" ...

we move on ... with dignity!

[hendry]

haven't been there lately ...
hearsay, they found cheaper refrigeration "specialist" ...

we move on ... with dignity!

yeah .. i've news on their latest leakages.
last friday!

this round from an abandoned northstar ice machine!

anyway, i only observe from as far as 100km away.

Hendry, on wesak day holiday.