Development of an application for mobile devices applied to process security: preliminary hazard analysis (PHA)

Abstract

The production of ammonia has great relevance among chemical processes, being used as a base for fertilizers and having the main desirable characteristics for a refrigerant fluid, such as chemical stability, it isn't a fuel, it doesn't decompose easily and it’s not explosive under normal conditions of temperature and pressure. Although it does not have high risks in its use, the way of obtaining the ammonia presents great risks due to the high pressure and temperature required by the process. Avoiding industrial accidents is of paramount importance in order to avoid irreparable damage to the population, the environment and all the assets built within the industrial plant. This academic paper studied the hazards in an ammonia production plant to allow the creation of a Preliminary Hazard Analysis (PHA) worksheet through the development of an app for mobile devices. For validation purposes, a PHA was made using the standard methodology already used in the industry, which was compared to the worksheet generated by the app. The app was developed in the JAVA^TM programming language, which is one of the languages used in a large scale by mobile developers, since it is easy to access and does not present major complications in its use