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NGT committee Findings on Gas leak in Vishakhapatnam
Why is it in News?
- National Green Tribunal intervened into it Suo-motu and appointed a committee to investigate it
More on News
- Committee findings
- Vapour leak due to self-polymerization of styrene monomer
- Constant Circulation of styrene needs to be done to keep its temperature under control
- Lockdown => halt of operations => 1800 tonnes of styrene became stagnant
- Resultantly, it led to Diels-Alder reaction and resulted into self-polymerization
- Onset temperature for styrene – 66 degree Celsius
- Onset temperature is a temperature at which heat generated by reaction cannot be removed completely from vessel and resulted into detectable temperature increase
- At Vishakhapatnam, there was no apparatus to record onset temperature => increase in temperature till boiling point (145 degree Celsius for styrene)
- Consequently, vapour formed => leak of gas
- Company didn’t have tertiary butyl catechol (TBC) which controls the temperature and self-polymerization
- Ideal temperature for storing styrene is 15-18 degree Celsius and should exceed 25 at any point of time
- No mechanism present to monitor dissolved oxygen levels
- If oxygen falls under 6% => clear indication of self-polymerization
- Claim of activists
- Report doesn’t mention styrene oxide (which is result of styrene and oxygen mixture) which is very toxic
- National Environmental Engineering Research Institute will investigate whether water from Meghadrigedda reservoir is safe for consumption or not.