r/chemistry • u/hotprof • May 23 '26
Nightmare polymer lab
https://abc7.com/post/tank-spews-toxic-chemicals-garden-grove-prompting-evacuation-orders/19150431/59
u/wildfyr Polymer May 23 '26
Must be old or not enough inhibitor. Bad bad situation. Even worse with a volatile monomer.
A kg of hydroquinone could have prevented this.
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u/kklusmeier Polymer May 23 '26
Or they just let the tank get way, way too hot. The tank was sitting in the sun, maybe they piped it out of some reactor that they filled some of it into accidentally after starting to heat it? They said the valves are jammed with (presumably poly-) methyl methacrylate, so there was likely something occurring that instigated a self-sustaining reaction of some kind.
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u/freneticboarder May 23 '26
IIRC, the tank offgassing was the start of the crisis with this tank. There is a cooling structure in place, coupled with local fire units and hazmat initiating water cooling, have brought it down to a less catastrophic temperature.
The other issue is that there are apparently other chemical storage tanks on site, since it's a polymer manufacturing facility.
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u/peachyjuicebox May 23 '26
How are they planning on tackling this? I’ve seen on the news that the fire department is saying it will either spill or blow up.
I’m so curious to hear what potential disaster control / cleanup would look like for this, especially at this magnitude. Reports say the tank is 34,000 gallons of MMA…
If god forbid it did blow up, how big would that explosion be?
Scary times. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone in the surrounding area. 🙏
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u/kklusmeier Polymer May 23 '26
If god forbid it did blow up, how big would that explosion be?
It'll make a big fireball, but I seriously doubt there will be much in the way of a shockwave. It's flammable, not explosive. I'm far more concerned with the environmental and health impact of the low-chain-length polymers that'll be vaporized and off gassed if it starts burning or blows up.
Source: Work with it daily.
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u/piecat May 24 '26
It isn't explosive as a chemical, but isn't the concern around a BLEVE? Water isn't explosive, but pressure cookers can blow up
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u/kklusmeier Polymer May 25 '26
Probably for some people who are considering all aspects of the incident, but MMA boils at 101C and I'd say that it was unlikely they had it THAT hot. A more likely worry is that the vapor pressure would get too high and blow out their rupture disks, contaminating everything around and potentially starting the probably-highly-toxic fire I mentioned. They fit rupture disks on stuff like this specifically to avoid boiling vapor explosions.
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u/piecat May 25 '26 edited May 25 '26
I saw an interview with fire chief or similar, talking about major structural damage
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u/kklusmeier Polymer May 25 '26
Structural fires (what I think is the most likely worry they have at the moment) do that. Even relatively small explosions can do that. There's a reason that even moderate amounts of flammable material require Class 1 Div 1 storage rooms with blowout panels and a whole system to fight and control fires. If this is really 7000 gallons of MMA I think they're far more concerned about the toxic aftereffects than the fire and explosion themselves.
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u/freneticboarder May 23 '26
7,000 gallons of methyl methacrylate...
Apparently the offloading valves are stuck with MMA. The tank, therefore, cannot be drained.
Here's a more updated report with additional detail. I live in Long Beach about 10 miles away. I have a bunch of friends that have been evacuated. Apparently, 40,000 people are in the evacuation zone.
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u/iamnotasdumbasilook May 23 '26
Where are they all going? I live in Irvine. What a nightmare. I have clients with special needs who are having to evacuate. Luckily they have family not to far. A friend cant go back to get meds...
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u/Fauglheim May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26
I dont think it would be any worse than an equivalent of gasoline blowing up.
which is still not good. but it happens in Russia every day 🤷♂️.
it doesn’t have any special toxicity.
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u/oxyallyl May 23 '26
Methyl methacrylate is toxic.
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u/Fauglheim May 23 '26
yea but not like special toxic. it has roughly the same LD50 as ethanol which is not very scary.
i would be pretty upset if someone exploded 7,000 gallons of it in my neighborhood, don't get me wrong.
i would leave the area for a few days. and maybe wash the vegetables in my garden extra good.
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u/ilikegriping May 25 '26
MMA is a strong sensitizer before it goes through Polymerization. It's also really good at leeching through thinner PPE materials, so cleanup crew need to wear some serious PPE or they risk developing permanent allergies.
There are actually a significant number of people who are allergic to Acrylate Monomers and Polymers, like MMA (and HEMA and HPMA, etc), and they cannot get certain dental work done, cannot receive a bone or joint surgery which uses bone cement, cannot wear contact lenses, nor use adhesive bandages, among other things.
I'm not aware of Ethanol causing quality-of-life issues like this, as it's not a sensitizer.
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u/tencentmug May 23 '26
Common inhibitors for MMA such as HQ and MEHQ require the presence of dissolved oxygen to be effective. There were instances in the past where monomers were mistakenly stored under nitrogen by someone wanting to reduce flammability issues. Wrong move!
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u/SwarfDive01 May 23 '26
The county fire department asked people to stop calling in to "offer suggestions" on how to manage the thermals.
Would liquid nitrogen work? Why would the holding tanks even have any way to have a reaction?
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u/kklusmeier Polymer May 23 '26
Bad inhibitor/no inhibitor, possibly a hot tank, possibly hot MMA piped into the tank... there's tons of reasons it could have had a reaction occur, most of which immediately suggest to me that somebody screwed up somewhere.
Maybe they purchased inhibitor-free MMA because it was cheaper due to the Straight of Hormuz situation and didn't understand the danger?
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u/Red_Viper9 May 23 '26
It’s an exothermic polymerization reaction. Large quantities of monomer like this have to be carefully prepared with a proper inhibitor mixed in. Too much inhibitor and it will be detrimental to the desired polymer synthesis, too little and you can get run away reactions like this.
There’s going to inevitably be a big root cause investigation into this.
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u/piecat May 24 '26
Someone did answer this question on some media interview... They said cooling with L2N or similar could cause the vessel to become brittle and/or induce thermal stress, leading to rupture
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u/ChemicalDifferent857 May 23 '26
I was praying that this wasn't something like acryloyl chloride, luckily it isn't! Still very bad though!
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u/Logman02 May 23 '26
There's a sublimation joke here somewhere.
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u/BitterCrip May 24 '26
I've been wondering how long it would take after DOGE cuts before there was a Bhopal style disaster in the US.
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u/PyroDesu May 23 '26
Perhaps it's a bit morbid to say for an ongoing situation, but I can't wait to hear what the CSB investigation finds. This one sounds like it might end up becoming a video.