Inherent occupational health assessment of biobutanol separation processes during the conceptual design stage

Abstract

Occupational health assessment on chemical processes is a crucial step in the workplace management system. Constant exposure towards harmful chemical substances can be detrimental to worker's health and the resulting medical compensation is often costly. Despite this, health performance of chemical processes was often being neglected as compared to safety and environment, and the assessment, upon conducted, was usually not carried out comprehensively. To bridge this existing gap, occupational health hazards assessment was conducted on biobutanol separation process -A biomass-based fuel that has the potential in replacing fossil fuel as the source of energy. For this, a method called the Inherent Occupational Health Index (IOHI) was used to assess eight biobutanol separation processes during the conceptual design stage. Chemical substances involved in the processes were evaluated based on their operating conditions, physical and chemical properties. Each of these elements was assigned with penalties depending on the degree of the potential health hazard they may pose. Based on the cumulative hazard level, the processes were ranked by the healthiness level. Following the assessment, the appropriate counter measures to reduce the hazards were then proposed.