A Bad Day at Work

I would agree when it comes to the small amounts found in manholes and storm drains. I've gotten a few good snoot-fulls of H2S from manholes with water and a lot of leaves and trash brewing away at the bottom, and set up a second blower and waited another half hour before going down there to muck it out...

But if you hit a pocket of concentrated H2S like they do from time to time with oil drilling, and have a release where they measure the concentration around you at the top of the drill rig in Parts per Ten

- as in 10%, 20%...

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Rotten eggs give off H2S in extremely low concentrations,

I've been in a refinery and out in a pipe rack correcting some piping diagrams when an H2S alarm went off. Managed to get out of the rack, get down 5 stories of stairs and into the blockhouse two units upwind before the first safety guy was even suited up. Fortunately it was a false alarm, but they are all taken seriously.

What was the product released when a selenium rectifier fried? (does that date me?) I do remember it smelled very bad and the info. distributed to TV repair shops said if you can smell it it's too much. ...lew...(vacuum tubes to VLSI)

There was a Navy training film, "The Man from Lox" Basically sex and violence to teach folks the reason for safety around liquid oxygen. Doe anyone have the ability to to supply a copy of the original, either on VHS or DVD? When I say the original, you know what the Navy put in to keep every male sailor's attention. Thanks Bert

Did something get frozen and then break off? :(

I remember that video well (The Man from LOX). It certainly got your attention, both at the beginning (good) and the end (bad).....

Dave

. There are two Bromine plants in El Dorado Arkansas. These plants produce liquid Bromine by pumping up brine and allowing it to flow down an extraction tower. Steam and Chlorine were injected upward . The free Chlorine replaced the Bromine so it became free Bromine. Gassious Ammonia was used to kill the exess acidity before the used brine was re injected underground .

Free Bromine is normally a gas, but can exist for a long while as a deep purple liquid. Gassious Bromine is very bad and liquid Bromine is very deadly.

The collected Bromine is handeled in large glass pipes with silicone rubber seals. There are electromagnetic valves which are closed in the energized state. Power goes down and the valves open to atmospheric vents right at the valve.

I was working outside and near by was a plant maintaince man cuting open a 55 gal. drum using a torch. BOOM the bottom blew out and the drum shot high in the air. The drum hit the high voltage lines which were directly overhead. This shorted out EVERYTHING so all the safety vents opened . Bromine was venting everywhere. Soon everything was reset and back under controll . The man who was cuting open the 55 gal drum was unindjured and after cleaning himself up was back opening drums , this time with a shop hammer and pipe wrench.

Enough Bromine had leaked into the ground that when a boring machine operator drilled to a depth of 12 feet, the bromine in the ground came out in clouds sufficent to drive him off his machine for 15 min.

One day , I was working in the plant pouring concrete, Bromine eats concrete and the steel reinforcing bars inside. Bromine eats everything except wood and Dry Lead . There was a Ammonia leak and I had to run out through a large 18 " slab of wet concrete to an open field . I rested at home 3 days and returned to pick up my last paycheck.

ROBB

I don't know -- but I know what it smells like.

If so -- I am similarly dated.

I'm still around, at least. :-) But when I fried them as a kid, I was working in a pole-barn workspace, so there was plenty of airflow.

One interesting thing is that a rather strong anti-dandruf (sp?) shampoo reminds me of frying selenium rectifiers. It comes in a blue bottle, and the goop is a blue-green color. IIRC, it is called "Selsun" or something like that, which suggests that it does have a selenium compound as part of it.

Enjoy, DoN.

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show snipped-for-privacy@tigerbyte.net (Craig) wrote back on 4 Sep 2004 00:05:58 -0700 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

Oh, that's normal. You are trying to get "out", they are having to go "in".

tschus pyotr

I missed the staff meeting but the minutes show "Mike Malone" wrote back on Wed, 1 Sep 2004 15:55:23 -0500 in rec.crafts.metalworking :

IF memory serves, one milliliter of water expands to 400 ml of steam. Lot of expansion, which explains why steam explosions are so "vigorous".

Ah, from "Steam Tables, Properties of Saturated and Superheated Steam", the critic point of steam is 705.47 degrees F and 3208.2 PSI. (Above that point, the difference between water as a liquid, and water as a gas (steam), is moot.)

tschus pyotr