Abstract
A major item of thermal process safety, concerning the industrial realisation of exothermic reactions, is the determination of a temperature, where a reaction can be carried out without risk for humans, environment, and of economic loss. The so-called limit temperature Texo is a safety parameter for the reaction process and should not be mixed up with the Self Accelerating Decomposition Temperature (SADT). The last one refers to a temperature value for safe transportation including specific conditions like transport time and type of containment. In Germany a technical guide (Identification and Control of Exothermic Chemical Reactions, TRAS 410, 2012) specifies three approaches for determining Texo. In this work, all these approaches were applied to specify Texo for the synthesis of three tert-Butyl peroxycarboxylic esters. Peroxycarboxylic esters are a subdivision of organic peroxides, known for their high hazardous potential.
Results differed partly significant. Anyhow, all of the used techniques and evaluation methods led to Texo values, which were on the safe side – taken the T>exo value estimated by the heat release criterion as reference. This method is considered by the authors as a very accurate one.
