Word: scrubber
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...manageable level had broken down more than five months earlier and never been repaired. A temperature alarm, which would have alerted workers to the trouble, had not been properly set. A flare tower that could have destroyed some of the escaping gas was out of commission. And a "scrubber," designed to neutralize toxic vapors, was not turned on until after the reaction had raced out of control...
...were all too real. More human frailty was on display than human progress. Odd how little it takes to pick up the facts involved in so sudden a catastrophe-to learn all about "methyl isocyanate," and how the pressure built up in a storage tank too rapidly for the "scrubber" to neutralize the gas that escaped into the atmosphere. Even a tragedy becomes a moment in technology, as if we feel compelled to advance knowledge at the same time we experience shock and grief. But acquiring information also serves as a deflection of feeling. In the long run we remember...
...Bhopal plant had two safety devices that would operate automatically in case a tank ruptured. The first was a scrubber that would neutralize the highly reactive gas by treating it with caustic soda. If the scrubber failed to do the job, another mechanism would ignite the gas and burn it off in the air harmlessly before it could do much damage...
...failure, neither of those safety measures worked last week. The plant had been temporarily closed for maintenance two weeks before the accident, and both the methyl isocyanate storage tanks and the pipes connecting them were under repair. According to Madanlal Ranji, president of the plant's labor union, the scrubber was also in the process of being fixed. To make matters worse, a critical panel in the control room had been removed, perhaps as part of the maintenance program, thus preventing the leak from showing up on monitors...
Economic considerations make scrubbers an unattractive option. A typical scrubber costs about a third of the price of a new coal-burning power plant, and uses 5 to 8 percent of the plant's electrical output. In addition, most scrubbers themselves produce an undesirable pollutant: calcium sulfite...