Abstract

MORA-BARRANTES, Jose Carlos et al. Chemical risk assessment by applying an inherent safety index: a case study in general chemistry teaching courses at a university center. Tecnología en Marcha [online]. 2022, vol.35, n.1, pp.100-114. ISSN 0379-3982.  http://dx.doi.org/10.18845/tm.v35i1.5288.

The Inherent Safety (IS) has taken on great importance in recent years, allowing chemical risks to be assessed in order to eliminate or avoid hazards associated with physicochemical processes, by implementing additional protection in the various industrial streams as well as on smaller scale production process, like the chemical laboratories of university centers. The main objective of this research is to define the level of chemical risk present in General Chemistry experimental practices developed at university centers, by applying an inherent safety risk index. The risks of the chemicals were evaluated by obtaining physicochemical and toxic properties of the substances and their corresponding comparison with the sub-indices of the evaluation method of the inherent safety index, to finally obtain the Inherent Safety Index of the chemical (ICI) for each experiment. A total of 123 chemical reagents from 20 experimental procedures were evaluated, obtaining the highest ICI value (15) for the practices ''Chemical reactions: chemical equations'' and ''Acid-base titrations''. In general, the level of risk according to the experimental values obtained from ICI for the evaluated laboratories are considered low, with values in a range between 2 and 15, compared to the maximum theoretical value (23) allowed by the methodology used.

Keywords : Index; inherent safety; hazard; risk; university; laboratory; chemical.

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