Abstract
Sucrose is the most popular disaccharide used as a sweetener in food industry. It's annual global production ranks at 170 million metric tons. Such large quantity of produced organic compound in natural way poses a threat of the possibility of a major industrial accident. Chemical Safety Board in its report on fires and explosions of sugar dust stated that first reported combustion of sugar dust took place in 1925. Since then, despite all modern protection techniques, one can still observe accidents caused by this compound i.e. sugar dust explosion in: silo tower (Cantley, England, 2003), sugar mill (Baltimore, USA, 2007), silo tunnel (Georgia, USA, 2008).
Growing popularity of artificial sweeteners commonly used as a sucrose substitute causes a rapid increase in their production which is close to 2 million metric tons annual. Sugar alcohols dust qualifies as a potentially flammable or explosive due to their chemical structure. Short carbon chains combined with several hydroxy groups significantly increases molecular oxygen balance in those compounds which makes them good fuel even in low oxygen conditions. Therefore they pose a threat of a major industrial accident and should be examined for it.
The purpose of the following work was to determine and compare parameters describing the burning process of six sugar alcohols: d-sorbitol, d-mannitol, xylitol, maltitol, myo-inositol, meso-erythritol; with sucrose. The fire tests were conducted using cone calorimeter and smoke density chamber, in accordance with standards: ISO 5659 and ISO 5660. All data and conclusions will be presented during conference.
