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    Southern California chemical tank at risk of exploding as 40,000 residents are ordered to evacuate
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    Southern California chemical tank at risk of exploding as 40,000 residents are ordered to evacuate

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    6 Comments

    1. DiligentTea5672 on

      Watch the company get hit with a completely meaningless $50k fine while completely uprooting the lives of 40,000 people tbh. just the standard cost of doing business at this point.

    2. Fantastic-Praline-66 on

      Just another day of corporations prioritizing shareholder profits over basic infrastructure maintenance tbh. they’ll probably get hit with a completely meaningless $10k fine and consider it just the cost of doing business.

    5. Arthur233 on

      For other chemists. The product is methyl methacrylate. It likely polymerized in the valves and they no longer operate. The tank can’t be drained.

      For non chemists. Methyl methacrylate is hazardous to handle but not a dangerous gas that will cause mass casualties. It’s main danger is reacting quickly and releasing lots of heat when it reacts. It’s the same chemical ~~hobbits~~ (hobbyists) use for modeling glue.

      My thought is that they likely used MEHQ has a stabilizer which requires oxygen to be active. In the tank, the oxygen was probably depleted and polymerization slowly began. I would be curious if the tank is fully solid now. Any pressure gauge would be erroneous as well.

      Personally, I would recommend an acoustic feedback test…. Aka. Hit it with a metal object and see if the tanks response is characteristic of being filled with liquid or solid. I would bet is it is a solid (and therefore safe). If liquid then I would destructively open any NPT port on the top side of the tank to relieve any pressure and drain from there with a Schlenk line, cannula style transfer.

      -PhD chemical engineer in the polymer industry.