The Latest: Chemical leak 'could have been catastrophic'

Kind of scary with people coming home from a long Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

Croda is British firm operating in a dozen countries. Here is some info on the plant

https://www.manta.com/c/mhb3vkp/croda-atlas-point

Croda Atlas Point
Croda Uniqema Inc
315 Cherry Lane
New Castle, DE 19720

Web: www.crodausa.com

Croda Atlas Point is a privately held company in New Castle, DE and is a Single Location business.
Categorized under Chemical Plant and Refinery Construction. Current estimates show this company has an annual revenue of 7986617 and employs a staff of approximately 37.

Hes right, ethylene oxide will explode in concentrations from basically 1% to 100%.

Ethylene oxide is a flammable, explosive, and highly penetrating gas; its sweet, ether-like odor does not provide sufficient warning of hazardous concentrations. Ethylene oxide is rapidly absorbed after inhalation, and solutions of ethylene oxide can penetrate human skin.

This event in Spain was caused by liquid propylene ethylene would appear to be even more volatile

The Los Alfaques disaster was a road accident and tanker explosion which occurred on 11 July 1978 in Alcanar, near Tarragona, in Spain. The tanker truck was loaded with 23 tons of highly flammable liquefied propylene. 217 people (including the driver) were killed and 200 more severely burned.

Most of the victims were vacationers in the Los Alfaques seaside campsite. The campsite is located at km 159 on the N-340 national road, 2 km south of the town of Sant Carles de la Ràpita. It has been renovated since and still exists today.

Circumstances
The truck, consisting of a Pegaso[1] tractor unit registered M-7034-C and a Fruehauf semi-trailer tanker registered M-7981-R, was owned by Cisternas Reunidas S.A. At 10:15 that day, the truck, driven by 50-year-old Francisco Imbernón Villena, arrived at the state-owned Enpetrol refinery, located at La Pobla de Mafumet, 9 km North of Tarragona, to be loaded with propylene for another state-owned company, Paular (now Repsol), from Puertollano.

At 12:05 the truck left the refinery carrying 23 tons of propylene, nearly 4 tons over the maximum design load of 19.35 tons. The tanker drivers were under instructions to take the smaller N-340 national road instead of the larger A-7 motorway when carrying cargo to Barcelona, in order to avoid the motorway toll.[citation needed] The N-340 was much narrower and more winding than the A-7, and also carried drivers directly through several densely populated areas.

On a summer day with temperatures from 20–35 °C (68–95 °F), the pressure in the tank would have been 1,200–1,700 kPa (170–250 psi).[2]

Accident[
The disaster occurred at ca. 14:35, while the truck was moving past the Los Alfaques campsite after having travelled 102 km.[3] The driver's watch, which was found still attached to the driver's burned wrist, had stopped at 14:36, the time of the explosion.[3]

There are several different witness reports as to the events directly preceding the blast, all of which are more or less equally plausible. Some reported the tank was already leaking as it approached the site, or sprung a leak with a loud bang while passing the site, and was then stopped by the driver. Others reported the bang being caused by a blown tire which caused the truck to swerve out of control and strike the wall separating the campsite from the roadside, possibly overturning in the process.[3]

In either case, the leaking tanker formed a cloud of gaseous propylene that partially entered the campsite and also drifted on the wind towards a discothèque to the northeast. The white cloud attracted the attention of campsite patrons, who approached the cloud with curiosity as it continued to spread. As the cloud began to permeate the crowded discothèque, it reached an ignition source and immediately flashed back into the tanker, causing a fire that nearly instantaneously ruptured the weakened tank and ignited the full load of gas.

At that time the campsite to the south was crowded with nearly 1,000 vacationers, mostly German and other foreign tourists, packed tightly in trailers and tents. The blast and fireball (which was estimated at over 1000 °C and left a 65’x5’ [19.8 x 1.5 meters] crater[citation needed]) destroyed everything – cars, trailers and buildings – within a 300-metre radius, gutting over 90% of the main camping area. The discothèque to the northeast, which was later determined to be the likely source of the ignition, was also razed, killing all the staff members inside.

Make sure Joe Biden is close by! Just in case!

Ethylene oxide is toxic, flammable, explosive, and volatile.

However, the story is somewhat misleading. As usual, the press does not do its homework on chemicals. EO has nothing to do with methanol, and is mostly an intermediate, not a finished product. Most of it is reacted with water to form ethylene glycol, which is primarily used for making polyester and plastic drinking bottles.