• Title/Summary/Keyword: Chemical spill

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Statistical Analysis of Chemical Substance Transporting Accidents (화학물질 운송 화학사고의 통계 특성 분석에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Tae-Hyung;Lee, Sang-Jae;Shin, Chang-Hyun
    • Fire Science and Engineering
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    • v.30 no.6
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    • pp.23-30
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    • 2016
  • This study analyzed the characteristics of chemical accidents, including the accidents occurring each year according to status, type of accident, accident cause for chemical substance transporting accidents. The major aim of this study was to provide information on the chemical accidents that occurred involving chemical substance transporting accidents from 2013 to July - 2016. The total incidence of chemical transporting accidents was 77 cases; 74 cases occurred by the spill & leakage type. The main cause of the accidents analyzed was traffic accidents (41 cases). Forty-six accidents were related to hazardous chemical substances. Among the 46 hazardous chemical substances involved in transporting chemical accidents, 46% of the accident substances were hydrogen chloride. For the prevention and response to accidents occurring during the transportation of chemicals, it is necessary to complement the precautions for chemical accidents caused by transportation accidents and chemical spills and leaks of chemicals. In addition, when the chemical transport of an accident occurs, it is necessary to apply a chemical transport safety system for chemical transfer.

Preparation of MgO with High Surface Area, and Modification of Its Pore Characteristics

  • Lee, Moon-Hee;Park, Dong-Gon
    • Bulletin of the Korean Chemical Society
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    • v.24 no.10
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    • pp.1437-1443
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    • 2003
  • Thermal decomposition of hydrated surface layer of $Mg(OH)_2$ at $500^{\circ}C$ in vacuum turned non-porous MgO into porous one with high surface area of around $270 m^2$/g. Most of its surface area, 74 %, was from micropores, and rest of it was from mesopores in wedge-shaped slits, exhibiting bimodal size distribution centered around 30 and 90${\AA}$. Rehydration followed by subsequent dehydration at $300 ^{\circ}C$ in dynamic vacuum further raised the surface area to 340 $m^2$/g. Fraction of microporous surface area was increased to 93%, and the shape of the mesopores was modified into parallel slits with a specific dimension of 32 ${\AA}$. Application of $Fe_2O_3$ over MgO via iron complex formation did not alter the pore characteristics of MgO core, except slightly increased pore dimension. Over the course of the modification, $Fe_2O_3$ stayed on the surface possibly via spill-over reaction.

BTEX Exposure and its Health Effects in Pregnant Women Following the Hebei Spirit Oil Spill (허베이 스피릿호 유류유출사고 지역 산모의 BTEX 노출과 건강영향)

  • Kim, Byung-Mi;Park, Eun-Kyo;LeeAn, So-Young;Ha, Mi-Na;Kim, Eun-Jung;Kwon, Ho-Jang;Hong, Yun-Chul;Jeong, Woo-Chul;Hur, Jong-Il;Cheong, Hae-Kwan;Yi, Jong-Heop;Kim, Jong-Ho;Lee, Bo-Eun;Seo, Ju-Hee;Chang, Moon-Hee;Ha, Eun-Hee
    • Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health
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    • v.42 no.2
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    • pp.96-103
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    • 2009
  • Objectives : We evaluated the health effects of exposure to BTEX(Benzene, Toluene, Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene, o-Xylene) in the Taean area after the Hebei Spirit oil spill. Methods : We used a questionnaire survey to look for health effects among 80 pregnant women 2 to 3 months following the Hebei Spirit oil spill. Their BTEX exposures were estimated using the CALPUFF method. We then used a multiple logistic regression analysis to evaluate the effects of BTEX exposure on the women s health effets. Results : Pregnant women who lived near the accident site reported more symptoms of eye irritation and headache than those who lived farther from the site. There was a trend of decreasing symptoms with an increase in distance from the spill site. Pregnant women exposed to higher ambient cumulative levels of Xylene were significantly more likely to report symptoms of the skin(OR 8.01 95% CI=1.74-36.76) in the first day after the accident and significantly more likely to report abdominal pain(OR 3.86 95% CI=1.02-14.59 for Ethylbenzene, OR 6.70 95% CI=1.82-24.62 for Xylene) during the 1st through 4th days following the accident. Conclusions : This study suggests that exposure to BTEX from an oil spill is correlated with an increased risk of health effects among pregnant women. This implies the need to take proper measures, including the development of a national policy for environmental health emergencies and a plan for studying the short- and long-term chronic health effects associated with such spills.

Comparison of Response Systems and Education Courses against HNS Spill Incidents between Land and Sea in Korea (국내 HNS 사고 대응체계 및 교육과정에 관한 육상과 해상의 비교)

  • Kim, Kwang-Soo;Gang, Jin Hee;Lee, Moonjin
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.21 no.6
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    • pp.662-671
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    • 2015
  • As the type of Hazardous and Noxious Substances(HNS) becomes various and the transport volume of HNS increases, HNS spill incidents occur frequently on land and the sea. In view of various damages to human lives and properties by HNS spills, it is necessary to educate and train professional personnel in preparation for and response to potential HNS spills. This study shows the current state of response systems and education courses against HNS spill incidents on land and the sea to compare those with each other between land and sea in Korea. Incident command system on land are basically similar to that at sea, but leading authority which is responsible for combating HNS spills at sea is changeable depending on the location of HNS spill, as it were, Korea Coast Guard(KCG) is responsible for urgent response to HNS spill at sea, while municipalities are responsible for the response to HNS drifted ashore. Education courses for HNS responders on land are established at National Fire Service Academy(NFSA), National Institute of Chemical Safety(NICS), etc., and are diverse. Education and training courses for HNS responder at sea are established at Korea Coast Guard Academy(KCGA) and Marine Environment Research & Training Institute(MERTI), and are comparatively simple. Education courses for dangerous cargo handlers who work in port where land is linked to the sea are established at Korea Maritime Dangerous Goods Inspection & Research Institute(KOMDI), Korea Port Training Institute(KPTI) and Korea Institute of Maritime and Fisheries Technology(KIMFT). Through the comparison of education courses for HNS responders between land and sea, some recommendations such as extension of education targets, division of an existing integrated HNS course into two courses composed of operational level and manager level with respective refresh course, on-line cyber course and joint inter-educational institute course in cooperation with other relevant institutes are proposed for the improvement in education courses of KCG and KOEM(Korea Marine Environment Management Corporation) to educate and train professionals for combating HNS spills at sea in Korea.

Analysis on the Characteristics of Hazardous Chemical Transport Vehicle Accidents in Korea (국내 유해화학물질 운송차량사고 특성분석)

  • Jeong, Jae-uk;Lee, Sang-jae
    • Journal of the Society of Disaster Information
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    • v.16 no.2
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    • pp.310-317
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    • 2020
  • Purpose: In this study, the characteristics of hazardous chemical transport vehicle accidents during the last six years from 2014 to 2019 was analyzed. This study is to prevent chemical transport accidents. Method: Using statistics from the Ministry of Environment, chemical transport vehicle accidents were classified into accident type, accident cause and vehicle type. Result: Of the total 506 cases chemical accidents, 105 cases were caused by transport vehicle. More than 20 percent of total accidents were reported. Most of the accidents were caused by spill·leak. The main causes of the accident were traffic accidents(49 cases) and management negligence(29 cases). This was more than 74% of all transport vehicle accidents. By vehicle type, 57 cases(54%) were most common in tank lorries, followed by trucks (39 cases, 37%) and trailers (9 cases, 9%). Conclusion: In order to prevent accident of transport vehicle, thorough inspection of the transport vehicle is required and safe operation of the driver. In addition, the government needs to expand real-time monitoring of transport vehicles and comprehensively manage different systems by the relevant ministries.

Case Analysis of the Harmful Chemical Substances' Spill (유해화학물질 유출의 사례 분석)

  • You, Jisun;Chung, Yeong-Jin
    • Fire Science and Engineering
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    • v.28 no.6
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    • pp.90-98
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    • 2014
  • Lately accidents of harmful chemical substance in korea were repeatedly replaying. We studied problems and preparation plan in 2008 years~2014 years through analysis cases of harmful chemical substance. Leakage of chemical substance's accident situation shows that leakage in the workplace is the most 10 cases, accounting for 58.6% is the largest proportion in 2009. Leakage according to explosion accounting for 50% (5 cases) in 2004, 25% (4 cases) in 2007 and 33.3% (4 cases) in 2011 has very irregular change. Therefore, A major cause of accidents is lack of safety management. Harmful chemical substance showed various aspects, high residual substance and non-visible characteristic so response and recovery was easy. And the second damage to move a distance causes environment pollution. So a mutual-assistance system and integrated system of related organization have to build and expert of chemical incident response and therapist of chemical substance response have to establish to do efficient and rapid response.

A Study on the Improvement of Chemical Accident Response System in View of the National Disaster Management System (국가재난관리체제 관점의 화학사고 대응체계 개선방안에 관한 연구)

  • Lee, Jae-Seok;Choi, Don-Mook
    • Fire Science and Engineering
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    • v.29 no.5
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    • pp.73-78
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    • 2015
  • Since the hydrofluoric acid spill accident in Gumi in 2012, the current situation has continued to suffer from makeshift responses or feeble national system maintenance in preparing real countermeasures against chemical accidents, regardless of their repeated occurrence and seriousness. Industrial chemical accidents have an enormous ripple effect on the whole country and society. The purpose of this study is to propose ways of establishing directions for the national disaster management system against repeated occurrence of chemical accidents. To achieve this goal, the present study proposed improvement measures of response system for industrial chemical accident through the analysis of the current response system and structural causes of disaster control failure for chemical accidents.

Hydrophobic Polydimethylsiloxane Thin Films Prepared by Chemical Vapor Deposition: Application in Water Purification (화학적 증기 증착 방법을 통해 제조한 소수성 폴리디메틸실록산 박막: 수처리로의 응용)

  • Han, Sang Wook;Kim, Kwang-Dae;Kim, Ju Hwan;Uhm, Sunghyun;Kim, Young Dok
    • Applied Chemistry for Engineering
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    • v.28 no.1
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    • pp.1-7
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    • 2017
  • Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) can be deposited on various substrates using chemical vapor deposition process, which results in the formation of PDMS thin films with thickness below 5 nm. PDMS layers can be evenly deposited on surfaces of nanoparticles composed of various chemical compositions such as $SiO_2$, $TiO_2$, ZnO, C, Ni, and NiO, and the PDMS-coated surface becomes completely hydrophobic. These hydrophobic layers are highly resistant towards degradation under acidic and basic environments and UV-exposures. Nanoparticles coated with PDMS can be used in various environmental applications: hydrophobic silica nanoparticles can selectively interact with oil from oil/water mixture, suppressing fast diffusion of spill-oil on water and allowing more facile physical separation of spill-oil from the water. Upon heat-treatments of PDMS-coated $TiO_2$ under vacuum conditions, $TiO_2$ surface becomes completely hydrophilic, accompanying formation oxygen vacancies responsible for visible-light absorption. The post-annealed $PDMS-TiO_2$ shows enhanced photocatalytic activity with respect to the bare $TiO_2$ for decomposition of organic dyes in water under visible light illumination. We show that the simple PDMS-coating process presented here can be useful in a variety of field of environmental science and technology.

A Study on the Improvement of the Education and Training System for Response to Marine Chemical Incidents in Korea - Based on the Comparison of Systems between Korea and Foreign Countries - (해상화학사고 대응을 위한 국내 교육훈련체계 개선에 관한 연구 - 국내 체계와 외국 체계의 비교를 기반으로 -)

  • Kim, Kwang-Soo;Lee, Moonjin
    • Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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    • v.23 no.7
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    • pp.847-857
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    • 2017
  • The present situations of the education and training systems for the response to marine HNS spill incidents in domestic and foreign countries were reviewed and the plans to improve domestic system were suggested on the basis of the comparison between domestic and foreign education systems. There were almost no private education and training institutions in Korea, and they have not been activated, compared with those of foreign countries such as USA, Canada, Australia and UK. The domestic marine HNS-related education has been implemented uniformly under Korean government initiative. In addition, there were differences in the targets and duration of the education offered by Korea Coast Guard Academy (KCGA) and Marine Environment Research & Training Institute (MERTI) in Korea. Domestic HNS-related curriculum was relatively simple, compared with the curricula of foreign countries, and has not accepted two levels (operational level and manager level) required in HNS model courses of International Maritime Organization (IMO). The domestic education and training period was short relatively to those of foreign countries. The following suggestions were made to improve the education and training system for the response to domestic marine chemical incidents. In the short term, an HNS education and training management consultation body (tentative name) should be established, with both KCGA and MERTI participating jointly while maintaining the current system of the two institutions (KCGA and MERTI) simultaneously. In the more distant and long term, the HNS-related departments of KCGA and MERTI should be incorporated into a National Marine HNS Response Academy (tentative name) as unified system to enable international competitiveness.

Effects of ultraviolet radiation on the toxicity of water-accommodated fraction and chemically enhanced water-accommodated fraction of Hebei Spirit crude oil to the embryonic development of the Manila clam, Ruditapes philippinarum

  • Lee, Chang-Hoon;Sung, Chan-Gyoung;Kang, Sin-Kil;Moon, Seong-Dae;Lee, Ji-Hye;Lee, Jong-Hyeon
    • The Korean Journal of Malacology
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    • v.29 no.1
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    • pp.23-32
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    • 2013
  • The purpose of this study is to evaluate the effects of oil dispersant and ultraviolet (UV) radiation on the toxicity of crude oil. The toxicity of water-accommodated fraction (WAF) and chemically enhanced water-accommodated fraction (CEWAF) of Hebei Spirit crude oil was investigated in the embryo of the Manila clam, Ruditapes philippinarum with- and without ultraviolet radiation. The WAF and CEWAF with- and without UV radiation affected significantly the embryonic development of R. philippinarum. The EC50s of WAF without UV, WAF with UV, CEWAF without UV, and CEWAF with UV were 2.82, 0.79, 1.60, and 0.45 g/L, respectively. CEWAF was 1.6 times more toxic than WAF. UV radiation increased crude oil toxicity to 3.6 times for both WAF and CEWAF. The oil dispersant and UV radiation did not affect the acute toxicity to the embryo but retarded the period of embryonic development up to 26%. R. philippinarum proved to be a sensitive species to reflect the toxic effects of oil spill combined with oil dispersant and UV radiation. It is suggested that the chemical analyses on the WAF and CEWAF is important for the identification and quantitative explanation of the phototoxic compounds in crude oil.