Chemical Forums
General Forums => Generic Discussion => Topic started by: Enthalpy on October 02, 2019, 12:05:05 PM
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Hello everybody!
A big fire at Lubrizol burned some 5,000t of varied compounds on 26 September 2019 within Rouen, France. Impressive dark smoke, soot falling down in Belgium too, iridescent films on the ground, people feeling sick, and so on.
Up to now, the government has only said "no danger", and the population, well, doesn't fully believe it. You know, the conspiracy theory.
On 01 October 2019, the préfecture published the list of the compounds that were stored in the destroyed area:
http://www.seine-maritime.gouv.fr/Actualites/Mise-a-jour-Incendie-au-sein-de-l-entreprise-Lubrizol
http://www.seine-maritime.gouv.fr/content/download/36604/246855/file/inventaire%20magasin%20avec%20tonnages.pdf (I join it here)
http://www.seine-maritime.gouv.fr/content/download/36601/246843/file/liste%20produits%20stock%C3%A9s%20dans%20entrepot%205.pdf (I join it here)
No analysis of the fumes nor the soot layer has yet been published.
On 02 October, some "expert" for safety commented that the fire could have produced formaldehyde and naphthalene, figure that.
I pick a few sub-names among the stored compounds:
sulfide, sulfonate, thiophosphate, phosphite, phosphoro, thioic, thioate, thione, thiol, methacrylate
Most amount was just petroleum distillates (which burned under reducing conditions...) but the first sulphide and thioic names appear in the 100t category, wow.
My opinion is that the fire produced an extremely wide mix containing organo-phospor and organo-sulphur compounds, of which many a very toxic even in tiny concentration. Already the "methacrylate polymer" must have released bad poisons in the fire. Plus the dioxins and other usual combustion poisons.
You opinion please?
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100 people in the emergency dept of the hospitals as an immediate consequence of the pollution. No death made public up to now.
The government commented "little for such a catastrophe", which is true. But we're far from the earlier "no acute toxicity".
Organo-phosphor can take longer to act, carcinogens even longer.