re: EO Leak at Shell Geismar

I sent this message to a close friend of mine that is a shift foreman in an MDI unit:

"You made MDI? Does process use EO or PO?"

His answer:

"One of our units use both of those. It’s the second component with mdi to make foam. Polyols."

Correct it is added to MDI, not used to make MDI.

I havent heard anything from anybody so I'm assuming that as far as EO leaks go, it's not too bad. As long as they can hit it with a fire monitor or something theres not much danger of kabooms

They made everyone a few hours ago across the street. Good thing because I think some people were considering canabalism

EO is ethylene oxide a highly useful chemical because of its reactivity

the army experimented with eo in the 1975 period of time making f a e bombs. free air explosive. took two fuses, one to rupture the container and one to detonate the vapor cloud. saw some video that showed the impact on live sheep. the army gave upon on eo because it was difficult to control


in the mid 1970's health hazard data determined that eo exposure to pregnant women would result in baby defects. important chemical ,,,, therefore major changes to handling requirements were implemented. at time I had a conversation with an insulator out side of the control room..... and his point was mai shai, I doan know why we must be trained on this feetle protection policy, we been whearing safety shoes fer years

something not often seen is an eo equipment leak on fire. it makes a pretty blue flame

shell geismer has two concerns about there leak. a very very large explosion, exposure to pregnant personal downwind