(383h) A Process Systems Engineering Approach for Advancing Process Safety in the Chemical and Energy Industries

In the chemical and energy industries, effective identification and quantification of hazards are critical to ensure safe and efficient operations of processes. Disruptions due to hazardous events such as toxic spills, fire, and explosions can cause losses in economics, health, and reputation to name a few. Traditionally, risk assessment techniques are utilized with a known design followed by implementation of safety systems. However, this approach of design followed by safety assessment could lead to an ineffective and/or costly safety system. This is especially important for chemical industries with variability in both raw material pricing and product demands, such as the pesticide industry. For example, the use of storage vessels to mitigate this variability might lower costs but create unnecessary hazards for the process. Therefore, safety needs to be integrated into the design decisions. However, safety as a function of scale is a challenging problem.

To address these concerns, my research has been focused on the development of a framework for safety and risks informed process economics that can be utilized in optimizing the design of hazardous chemical processes. We utilize two concepts in our framework: (i) the Total Cost of Process Risk (TCPR) as a method to assess as a function of scale the “riskiness” of the process through cost of losses and (ii) the Risk Transfer Premium (RTP) as a tool to convert the riskiness into a monetary cost in the form of an insurance premium [1-4]. To demonstrate its applicability, we examine the production of a globally utilized pesticide, glyphosate. Glyphosate has three main routes for production: the hydrogen cyanide (HCN), diethanolamine (DEA), and glycine routes [5]. We first demonstrate a superstructure-based approach for process synthesis of optimal economic designs of a glyphosate process in the San Joaquin Valley of California with variable raw material pricing and product demand [6]. Using the TCPR, we assess the risks associated with the production of glyphosate for each route as a function of scale and integrate this into the design and optimization model. Results demonstrate the tradeoffs in the decision-making at both the investment and operational levels between the economic design versus the safety and risks informed design. Finally, a safety and risks informed economic design is demonstrated through the usage of the RTP.

Research Interests: Supply chain optimization, process design & synthesis, quantitative risk analysis, reliability engineering

[1] Schofield, D. (1998). Going from a Pure Premium to a Rate. Casualty Actuarial Society.

[2] Khan, F.I., Amyotte, P.R. (2005). I2SI: A comprehensive quantitative tool for inherent safety and cost evaluation. Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries. 18(4 – 6), pp. 310 – 326.

[3] Khan, F.I., Abbasi, S.A. (1998). Multivariate Hazard Identification and Ranking Systems. Process Safety Progress. 17(3), pp. 157 – 170.

[4] Khan, F.I., Husain, T., Abbasi, S.A. (2001). Safety Weighted Hazard Index (SWeHI): A New, User-friendly Tool for Swift yet Comprehensive Hazard Identification and Safety Evaluation in Chemical Process Industries. Process Safety and Environmental Protection. 79(2), pp. 65 – 80.

[5 ]Yushchenko D.Y., Khlebnikova, T.B., Pai, Z.P., Bukhtiyarov, V.I. (2021). Glyphosate: Methods of Synthesis. Kinetics and Catalysis. 62. pp. 331 – 341.

[6] California Department of Pesticide Regulation. California Pesticide Information Portal (CalPIP). https://calpip.cdpr.ca.gov/main.cfm (Accessed 2025).