Chemical Engineering October 2015 - 51

the soldered seams of common tin cans
used for a multitude of food products. The
new product will be packaged in glass, so
no further addition of heavy metals will occur.
What do you think Jeremy should do?
1.Report the findings, but recommend that
the additive not be used at all, because it
is unethical to add poison no matter what
the quantity?
2.Prevent any further consideration of this
dilemma by suppressing the findings?
3.Recommend the open use of this heavy
metals-stabilized additive?
4.Recommend that it be used, but that the
deliberate addition of heavy metals be considered
a trade secret, and be kept from
leaking to the public because " it would
only cause unnecessary worry? "
5.Other? (Please specify)
1.Inform government authorities about the
incident, as required by law, even though
no apparent harm resulted?
2.keep the incident quiet (in violation of the
law) since no harm resulted, the foreman
has been punished, and a report would
only cause trouble for the company, without
doing the public any good?
3.Let the corporate management make the
decision?
4.Other?
Case #3. Missing Gasket (from previous
2007 CE issue)
Albert is supposed to perform one final
Case #2. " To err is Human " (from previous
2007, 1987 and 1980 CE issues)
Emily is the plant manager of a facility in
which organic syntheses are performed. In
one of the operations, an aqueous solution
of sodium cyanide is reacted with another
material to form the desired end-product.
One night, on the midnight shift, an error is
made, and too much cyanide is added to
the water. There is not enough room in the
mix tank to make an adjustment, so the shift
foreman has the tank emptied into drums
and starts another batch. Two weeks later,
there is a lull in production, and the dayshift
foreman decides to use the time in reworking
the erroneous cyanide batch. no one
can find the drums that the batch should
be in. Upon questioning the night foreman,
Emily finds that the batch has been illegally
dumped into the sanitary sewer, rather than
saved in drums as dictated by the company
policy. Emily severely disciplines the nightshift
foreman for his action. Upon making
discreet inquires of friends at the sewage
plant, the health department and the rivermonitoring
authorities, Emily finds that no
apparent harm resulted from the dumping.
What do you think Emily should do?
batch run at his multipurpose pilot plant before
shutting down the unit for good. The reaction
involves the use of an extremely toxic
chemical that can also ignite spontaneously
in air. It is Friday afternoon; the test results
from the pilot plant are needed by his superiors
the following Monday in order to bid on a
project involving a large sum of money. After
cleaning the reactor vessel from the previous
batch, Albert begins to reconnect the flanges
when he discovers that there is no replacement
available for a critical gasket; the procedure
for this particular reaction specifies that
the gasket not be used a second time due to
the hazards involved. Because it is Friday afternoon,
there is no chance of obtaining another
gasket until the following week. On the
other hand, Albert knows from experience
(involving less-hazardous reactants) that this
type of gasket can often be used more than
once without leaking. What do you think Albert
should do?
1.Finish the pilot test, using the old gasket
on the basis that it will probably not leak?
2.Order a new gasket, send the assistants
home early and email the superiors explaining
that the test will have to be postponed
until a new gasket is available?
3.Skip the test completely and extrapolate
the existing data to make up for the missing
data?
4.Other?
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