Research on optimizing the scope of impact considering decomposition products in the event of a nitric acid spill chemical accident.

As the size of the chemical industry increases, chemical accidents continue to occur as the handling volume of chemicals also increases. Currently, in the case of a chemical accident, the prediction of the scope of influence mainly analyzes the scope of the impact on a single substance in the accident and does not consider the scope of the decomposition and reaction products. Nitric acid, one of the many chemical accidents, produces nitrogen dioxide, which is harmful when decomposed. In this research, we at first assumed an outflow accident of nitric acid. After conducting our research using the Chemical Accident Response Information System (CARIS), we discovered that the impact range and breakdown of nitric acid were comparable to that of nitrogen dioxide. Furthermore, we were able to identify the potential ramifications associated with such occurrences. In this study, the impact scenarios were evaluated according to the worst-case scenario, the alternative scenario, the size of the leak hole diameter, atmospheric temperature, atmospheric wind speed, and atmospheric stability. The results showed that the end point concentration distance of nitrogen in ERPG-1, 2 and 3 was larger than nitric acid in most conditions, with differences of up to 5.45 times in the worst-case scenario, 5.96 times in the alternative scenario, up to 6.952 times in the leak hole diameter scenario, up to 10 times in the atmospheric temperature scenario, up to 13 times in the wind speed-specific scenario, and up to 4 times in the atmospheric stability scenario. In the event of a nitric acid spill chemical accident, the response agency should set up a boundary area at a greater distance in consideration of the impact of nitrogen dioxide when setting up a boundary area such as the Hot zone and the Warm zone. Nitric acid handling sites should install additional detectors for nitrogen dioxide, which is decomposition products, to monitor the diffusion of decomposition products into the atmosphere when installing detection alarm equipment in preparation for leakage accidents. It is believed that the government should continuously secure and study data on other decomposable chemicals besides nitric acid to provide material information and disaster prevention methods to chemical accident response agencies and communities for effective and early treatment of chemical accidents.