Cause of Explosion and Fire at Evonik's Marl Plant in Germany Remains Unknown

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Researched by Industrial Info Resources Europe (Galway, Ireland)--A huge explosion and subsequent fire last weekend rocked a chemical park in the northern Ruhr area of Germany, resulting in the death of two Evonik Industries (Essen, Germany) employees. The cause of the explosion, which happened on 31 March, is not yet known.

The blast was triggered in a tank in the cyclododecatriene (CDT) plant at the Marl facility. CDT is a raw material used in the production of flame retardants and also a starter chemical used in the process to make polyamide 12. Marl is Evonik's European centre for the speciality polymer polyamide 12. Evonik is the sole integrated European producer of the polymer. Evonik's plants in Marl and Shanghai, China, are currently under way with significant expansions of their polyamide 12 production facilities, with 5,000 metric tons being added at Marl and a further 20,000 metric tons added at a new facility in Shangai.

A spokesman for Evonik said the company has not been allowed access to the Marl site while local authorities conduct their investigation. Consequently, Evonik is not able to assess the damage to the CDT plant and is not able to comment whether the incident will delay construction of the new polybutadiene unit, which is scheduled to begin construction in June of this year.

The chemical park is operated by Infracor (Marl, Germany). It is one of Gernmany's biggest chemical parks, covering an area of about 6.5 square kilometers. The park contains more than 100 chemical plants from about 30 firms, including Evonik, Rohm and Hass, Ineos, Lanxess (FRA:LXS) and Vestolit.

Infracor officials acknowledged that some butadiene leaked after the blaze, but they said air emissions were below danger threshold limits. The public was never at risk from exposure to the carcinogenic substance, they added.

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