Inspection Detail

Inspection: 1504022.015 - Kurita America

Inspection Information - Office: Fort Worth Area Office

Investigation Summary

At 8:00 p.m. on October 30, 2020, Employee #1 and Employee #2, both chemical technicians working for a chemical manufacturer, were preparing a batch of Kuriverter IK-110. The process requires that employees manually add constituent chemicals into a blending tank where a reaction occurs. During the operation, the employees control the reaction by monitoring the temperature of the product and adjusting the rate at which chemicals are added if the temperature begins to raise above an established threshold. During the later stages of the preparation, the employees became aware that they had chosen a blending tank that was too small to hold the final volume of the finished product. To correct the problem, they placed the remainder of the chemical that had not been added to the mixture into an empty but larger blending tank. The employees then transferred the already mixed chemicals from the smaller tank into the larger one. Upon doing so an uncontrolled reaction occurred causing the corrosive chemicals to boil over onto both Employee #1 and Employee #2. Both employees were hospitalized to treat chemical burns to their faces.

Keywords: Burn, Chemical, Chemical Burn, Chemical Reaction, Corrosive, Face, High Temperature, Insufficient Supervision, Lack of Work Procedures, Lost Control, Material Handling, Misjudgment, Misjudgment of Hazardous Situation, Mixer, PPE, PPE Hazard Assessment, Protective Clothing, Tank, Technician, Wrong Equipment