DCHAS-L Discussion List Archive
Date: Sat, 6 Mar 2010 00:36:04 +0800
Reply-To: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
Sender: DCHAS-L Discussion List <DCHAS-L**At_Symbol_Here**LIST.UVM.EDU>
From: Tan Khai Seng <khaiseng**At_Symbol_Here**NUS.EDU.SG>
Subject: Emergency purge mode for fumehood
Hi everyone
for some fumehood, especially the VAV fumehoods, they come with an
emergency purge button which is supposed to increase the exhaust rate in
the event of a spillage.
I have just encounter an incident where a distillation was wrongly set
up, the set up went flying after 2 hours and toluene was spead all over
the fumehood. The researcher instinctively close the sash fully and
activate the emergency purge mode. by then, the toluene had ignited and
the activation of the purge mode actually fanned the fire. the fire was
big enough to melt the flexible duct connecting the fumehood to the
exhaust duct. the researcher was able to contain the fire within the
fumehood and extinguish it with the fire extinguisher.
we are debating over the question of whether to activate or not to
activate the emergency purge button.
any advise?
Previous post | Top of Page | Next post
