Development of a hazardous material selection procedure for the chemical accident response manual

After the accidental hydrogen-fluoride leak in Gu-mi city, Korea, the Korean government revised its laws on chemical management. The hazardous chemical management laws were strengthened to meet the legal standards, and now the selection of Accident Precaution Chemicals (APCs) is required. This study introduces a novel hazardous material selection procedure for industrial chemical management. The proposed method consists of screening, scoring, rating, and selection procedures. Among the 4,994 hazardous chemicals in the database, 1,362 chemicals were selected through the screening process. The selected chemicals were classified as flammable, explosive/reactive, and toxic materials, and in the final step, flash point, heat of combustion, and toxicity of these chemicals were considered in chemical ratings. According to the ratings, 100 toxic materials were selected and used to modify the safety management manual development software, currently used in Korean companies that deal with hazardous chemicals. The developed algorithm and software are expected to greatly aid plants that deal with hazardous materials.