Reactive chemicals are among the most dangerous because they can suddenly explode or cause fires. Make sure your employees know how to handle these hazardous materials and prevent potentially serious injuries.
Reactive chemicals may react with air, water, or other chemicals. Some reactive chemicals are even self-reactive.
These substances may also be sensitive to shock, heat, or friction, and exposure to any of these may result in a fire or an explosion. Furthermore, chemical by-products from reactive chemicals may be corrosive, poisonous, or flammable.
Another big problem is that chemical reactions may be started by accident—for example, unintentionally bringing two incompatible materials into contact.
Reactive chemicals may also be intentionally mixed to manufacture products, but even such controlled reactions can be hazardous. For example:
- Losing containment or control of the intended reaction
- Starting another unintended reaction
- Starting a side reaction or series of reactions that are not expected
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Reactive chemicals can also create a fire hazard due to:
- Friction
- Absorption of moisture, which may cause some water-reactive materials to heat up
- Spontaneous chemical changes, which often generate heat
- Retained heat from manufacturing or processing
- Vigorous and persistent burning
And as if all that isn’t enough, reactive chemicals can be hazardous to health in various ways as well. For example they can:
- Irritate or burn eyes, skin, throat
- Form severely corrosive acids or be toxic
- Cause dizziness, vomiting, and convulsions, which can be fatal
- Cause asphyxiation and death
Accident Prevention
Reactive chemicals include:
- Pyrophoric chemicals ignite spontaneously on short exposure to air under ordinary conditions without an ignition source.
- Peroxide formers will react with oxygen in the atmosphere to form unstable peroxides, which in turn might explosively decompose if concentrated
- Water-reactives will chemically react with water, causing thermal burns, igniting combustibles, and giving off corrosive and toxic gases
- Oxidizers readily yield oxygen to promote or initiate combustion.
- Self-reactives will self-react, often with accelerating or explosive rapidity.
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To prevent hazardous reactions with any of these substances, employees should:
- Know how chemical reactions might be initiated, such as by heat, contamination, inadvertent mixing, impact, friction, electrical short, etc. They should check the safety data sheet (SDS) for information.
- Know how to recognize when an uncontrolled reaction is taking place when reactive chemicals are intentionally mixed in manufacturing processes.
- Understand the consequences of a reaction such as toxic gas release, fire, or explosion.
- Identify safeguards to prevent uncontrolled reactions from taking place.
- Know how to respond properly if an uncontrolled reaction takes place.
- Know segregation rules for storing reactive chemicals so that they do not come in contact with any substance that could cause a reaction.