Measurement of hazardous reactions under extreme conditions with a house-built high-performance adiabatic calorimeter

The continuous emergence of new materials and chemical processes has posed great challenge on the hazard assessment capacity, especially the capacity to mimic the reaction progress and to measure the heat released. Although a few thermal hazard screening tools are readily available, a flexible yet cost-effective adiabatic calorimeter that could be applied under extreme conditions is still missing. A house-built high-performance adiabatic calorimeter (HPAC) was developed to solve the problem. We validated the HPAC by comparing its performance with a commercially available Vent Sizing Package 2 in the measurement of H2O2 decomposition and Di-t-butyl peroxide decomposition. We then demonstrated the capability of the HPAC by successfully evaluating the thermal runaway and overpressure hazard of a residual oil hydrotreating reaction under high temperature and high pressure.