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Home » Some notes from Christopher’s visit to ASTI Conference October 2024

Some notes from Christopher’s visit to ASTI Conference October 2024

By Andrew Perks

As you may know by now, A Perks Enterprises are affiliates with Ammonia Safety Training Institute (ASTI) from California, US.

Andrew Perks Andrew Perks is a subject expert in ammonia refrigeration. Since undertaking his apprenticeship in Glasgow in the 1960s he has held positions of contracts engineer, project engineer, refrigeration design engineer, company director for a refrigeration contracting company and eventually owning his own contracting company and low temperature cold store. He is now involved in adding skills to the ammonia industry, is merSETA accredited and has written a variety of unit standards for SAQA that define the levels to be achieved in training in our industry.

Christopher is back from a week- long visit to ASTI’s 32-hour training programme in Monterey. It’s just amazing what ASTI gets through in these four days from classroom training to live ammonia exercises in the field.

Christopher with Gary Smith and Don Tragethon of ASTI.
Christopher with Gary Smith and Don Tragethon of ASTI. All Images by A. Perks Enterprises

ASTI are firm believers in their tried and tested ‘Tripod’ alliance where representatives of industry, government and public safety all cooperate to create a safer working environment and rapid response techniques to mitigate and control incidents. Parties with ammonia refrigeration plants (industry) engage with the emergency services (public safety), inviting them to perform site inspectionsand formulate response plans together, and finally everyone engages with the regulators (government) to formulate regulations to keep personnel and plants safe. With all the stakeholders. Working together, a stronger bond is formed and ultimately makes ammonia the safest hazardous chemical we utilise today.

 

We are intent on bringing the same principles to Southern Africa with programmes we are incorporating in our training schedules. Safe working procedures with ammonia and other hazardous material need to be the order of the day, but we have found that the local emergency services are in the dark when it comes to working with ammonia. To address this, we presented a two-day training schedule at Quayside Training Academy (located at Crossberth Cold Store in Cape Town Harbour) at the end of October where we engaged with Transnet, port authorities and City of Cape Town Disaster Management Services. The feedback received was tremendous with everyone agreeing we need to look at the Tripod-type relationship that ASTI has introduced to ‘make OUR Port a safer place to be’.

Christopher came back with a wealth of additional knowledge which we are incorporating into our material going forward. We are of the opinion that if we are standing still, we are going backwards and losing ground. Some of his observations are as follows:

For instance, when dealing with a liquid or aerosol spill, putting a tarp over the liquid will buy us time to formulate a plan and to put it in place to deal with the problem. A tarp equalises the pressure of the off- gassing ammonia (creating equilibrium) and stops the liquid from evaporating rapidly – which could raise the concentration levels of ammonia in the area.

In a vapour ammonia release, using water curtains to absorb the ammonia vapour will create ammonium hydroxide. This is now a different chemic

We are extremely proud to be associated with ASTI and look forward to enabling our industry to be a safer place to work. That’s us with our ASTI hats.
We are extremely proud to be associated with ASTI and look forward to enabling our industry to be a safer place to work. That’s us with our ASTI hats.

al to deal with, where pure ammonia would flash off and dissipate relatively quickly, minimising the downwind impact.

In a large release where water has been used, ammonium hydroxide can off-gas for hours, sometimes days. This results in high ammonia concentrations in the area and renders the area inaccessible to personnel. Using fans instead of water for vapour suppression increases the vapourisation of the ammonia and disperses it to the atmosphere faster. This will result in lower concentration levels in the area.

In the US when dealing with an emergency situation, a SCBA (self-contained breathing apparatus) is a requirement. Canister gas masks are only to be used in normal work conditions or for escape in an emergency situation. SCBA is required over IDLH limits (300 ppm). Level A PPE (personal protective equipment) is required when an emergency is declared. Emergency services train to put a mask on in eight seconds. Any longer is failure.