• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.49-53
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• 2016

The goal of this study is to analyze accidents occurred at experimental laboratory and to suggest hierarchical taxonomy applicable to prepare countermeasures reducing the experimental laboratory accidents. Recent 5 years accidents were analyzed and classified according to their primary cause, facility or human. Then in case of facility, the accidents were further classified whether they can be fixed by organization or by individual. In case of human factor, they were classified into physical, chemical, or biological to prepare precise measures. Depending on the adequacy of appropriate practice, several measures were suggested such as; whether to improve training of laboratory workers, or to improve training the system, or to improve or prepare practice substantially. A new taxonomy for laboratory accident was suggested complying other governmental agencies' classification such as KOSHA and KGS. Additionally, two kinds of possibilities were suggested such as possibility of major accident and possibility of disaster which can be defined as laboratory accident causing large scale of harmful consequence to residential area or environment by fire, explosion and/or toxic release of hazardous chemicals and/or microbiology.

• Fire Science and Engineering
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• v.33 no.6
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• pp.80-86
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• 2019

In Korea, a total of 556 chemical accidents occurred from 2012 to 2018 caused by adverse reactions of two or more chemicals, which required significant amounts of time to identify the causative chemicals. Rapid analysis is required for effective incident response and probing. In this study, a quantum transition time-of-flight mass spectrometer was used to identify the causative agents of chemical accidents caused by adverse reactions. The analyzer enabled fast real-time analysis without the need for sample collection and pretreatment. Quantitative and qualitative analysis of most volatile organic compounds with high hydrogen affinity was performed to investigate the cause of the chemical accidents. In fact, in the month of 201◯, methanol and toluene were detected as causative agents of the accident using a quantum transition time mass spectrometer, and were also the cause of the reported odor.

• Journal of the Korea Safety Management & Science
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.1-9
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• 2014

The occupational health and safety accidents were continuously increased during handling, usage and manufacturing the chemical materials according to increase of small and medium sized enterprises in domestic industries. These accidents mainly resulted from insufficient occupational health and safety management and deteriorative facilities and focused on corresponding operation to minimize the damage of accidents after occurrence. But, it was required that we grasped the occurrence causes of occupational health and safety risk in handling, usage and manufacturing the chemical materials and develop the adequate corresponding operation and system according to the possible occurrence of occupational health and safety risk. This study deals with the development of risk assessment model to derive the risk and important risk of occupational health and safety and then help to construct the self-controlled occupational health and safety system for small and medium sized enterprises handling the chemical materials.

• Journal of Soil and Groundwater Environment
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• v.24 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2019

This study presents a technical perspective to the fate characteristics of phenol and m-cresol, which represent some of the most common organic chemicals found in chemical spill accidents, and likely to persist in soil and groundwater due to their highly stable physicochemical properties. Some cases of domestic and foreign chemical accidents linked to phenol and m-cresol contamination were compiled. Due to their low organic carbon-water partitioning coefficient (Koc), phenol and m-cresol tend to migrate into groundwater and remained as dissolved phase. On the other hands, phenol and m-cresol can be readily decomposed by microbes in soil and groundwater under appropriate conditions. Therefore, the fate characteristics of these chemicals are highly contingent on environmental conditions. Thus, if a great quantity of leakage is occurred by chemical accidents, the up-to-date and correct information about fate characteristics taking into account both the chemical and environmental conditions is greatly needed to minimized the potential hazards from these chemicals.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.10-17
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• 2022

Currently, in Korea, lower and upper tier qualifying quantities of the 97 substances requiring preparation for accidents have been designated. The information on the submission of chemical accident prevention management plan varies depending on whether the handling volume is above or below the lower or upper qualifying quantity. Because the criteria of the lower and upper qualifying quantities of substance requiring preparation for accidents are not stipulated in the Chemical Substances Control Act, this study attempted to establish a criterion through significance verification. In addition, the study investigated whether these qualifying quantities are related to the Globally Harmonized System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals (GHS), toxic concentration endpoint, and National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). Finally, by comparing the risk categorization of the GHS, endpoint, and NFPA, it was evaluated whether the circulation-volume-based risk categorization of the substance requiring preparation for accidents that are in the top 13 is appropriate. The qualifying quantities of benzene, toluene, and sulfuric acid needed to be adjusted upward, while those of methyl alcohol and ammonia were adjusted downward from the current qualifying quantities. It is required to establish a quantified criterion that fully reflects the domestic situations in Korea and various indicators such as toxicity, physicochemical properties, and circulation volume for the qualified criterion of hazardous chemical substances. The study is expected to be helpful in establishing an efficient system by systematizing the criterion for qualifying quantity.

• Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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• v.14 no.3
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• pp.360-366
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• 2018

Purpose: This study operation of Joint inter-agency Chemical Emergency Preparedness Center and contribute to the reduction of chemical accidents that occur continuously. Method: The Joint inter-agency Chemical Emergency Preparedness Center functions and Chemical accident statistics data of the ('13~'17) were utilized. Results: The number of chemical accidents is decreasing from 113 in '15, 78 in '16, 87 in '17(latest five years 469 chemical accidents). The Joint inter-agency Chemical Emergency Preparedness Center is located in the industrial complex that handling a large amount of chemical, and performs functions such as prompt response, probation & investigation, accident prevention training, safety patrol. It is believed that it contributes to the decreasing of chemical accident by local control accident prevention function. Conclusion: Decreasing the safety management according to the Chemicals control act('15.1.1). The Joint inter-agency Chemical Emergency Preparedness Center('14.1 set up manage organization), which is operated as a mission to prepare respond to chemical accidents, plays a role.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.66-72
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• 2018

This study analyses the types, related operations, facilities, and causes of chemical accidents in Korea based on the RISCAD classification taxonomy. In addition, human error analysis was carried out employing different human error classification criteria. Explosion and fire were major accident types, and nearly half of the accidents occurred during maintenance operation. In terms of related facility, storage devices and separators were the two most frequently involved ones. Results of the human error-based analysis showed that latent human errors in management level are involved in many accidents as well as active errors in the field level. Action errors related to unsafe behavior leads to accidents more often compared with the checking behavior. In particular, actions missed and inappropriate actions were major problems among the unsafe behaviors, which implicates that the compliance with the work procedure should be emphasized through education/training for the workers and the establishment of safety culture. According to the analysis of the causes of the human error, the frequency of skill-based mistakes leading to accidents were significantly lower than that of rule-based and knowledge based mistakes. However, there was limitation in the analysis of the root causes due to limited information in the accident investigation report. To solve this, it is suggested to adopt advanced accident investigation system including the establishment of independent organization and improvement in regulation.

• Korean Chemical Engineering Research
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• v.52 no.6
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• pp.743-749
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• 2014

Even if many studies for the prevention of accidents in chemical plant have been carried out, recently more severe accidents in chemical plants have occurred continuously. These have a large potential impact and the loss of casualties and economic can vary according to the activities of early emergency responses. Thus, in order to mitigate the impact of accidents, the studies preparing the guidelines for emergency response have to be urgently needed. In this study, the current emergency responses guidelines and regulations in Korea were investigated to find out the drawbacks. And, to tackle these, BCP(Business continuity plan) method was used to improve the activities of early emergency responses as suggesting the basic components, response steps, feedback and procedures of the emergency responses.

• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.239-251
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• 2020

The Off-site Risk Assessment (ORA) for preventing chemical accidents estimates the chemical accident risk at chemical plants. The method of estimating the risk is made by multiplying the number of residents within the effect area of the chemical accident and the frequency of accidents at a chemical plant. At present, the ORA does not quantitatively consider environmental receptors when the damage types within the scope of the accident are environmental receptors. In order to solve this problem, this study proposes a method of estimating the risk considering resident and environmental receptors. Through these studies, it was confirmed that the ORA impact for the prevention of chemical accidents requires risk analysis considering environmental receptors in the medium and long term.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Safety
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.69-74
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• 2001

In this study, we analyzed the accident scenarios of chemical plants through the analysis of lots of chemical accidents and using experts knowledge, and looked into the method of prevention and response. Moreover, we developed a systemic and actual Emergency Response Plan Software(ERPS) that could prevent, prepare and respond totally for the chemical industry facilities using the data from the accident effect estimation from the local society and the geographic information of a chemical plant. The ERPS consists of the information for the plant and process, the consequence analysis and the ERPTA(Emergency Response Plan Tree Analysis). In conclusion, the program developed in this study could help effectively all the chemical industry facilities to prevent and respond to possible accidents.