Electrostatic Hazard Assessment for Pharmaceutical Industry

The paper deals with the Electrostatic Hazard Assessment of the electrostatic ignition hazards when flammable gases, liquids or combustible powders are handled and processed in pharmaceutical industry. An electrostatic discharge is one of the most crucial ignition sources for combustible substances and flammable liquid. In order to carry out correct safety measures to prevent from ignition, it is necessary to carry out correct assessment and understanding of electrostatic charge. This report includes identification of hazardous chemicals which can be a source of ignition in form of static charge, assessment of accumulation of static charge and its discharge energy. This report is presented for one of the largest steroid and hormone API manufacturer in India who deals various types of hazardous chemicals to produced specialty steroid and hormone API derivatives. In API manufacturing industry there are numerous operations starts from handling of raw solvent, flammable liquid or combustible dust to dispensing of finished fine powder can also lead to static charge. In order to prevent incidents/accident caused by electrostatic discharge, it is necessary that operators or staffs working in API plants observe and understand electrostatic potential hazards and have preventive measures with safety experts. Electrostaticcharge and discharge phenomena, preventive measures against static electricity and some methods for assessment of electrostatic hazards are described in this paper.