Pharmaceutical operations often require inertion or other suitable explosion protection systems when handling highly ignition sensitive materials. Regulating bodies typically require full inertion, which may be difficult and expensive to maintain. This work measured the influence of oxygen concentration on the values of the minimum ignition energy (MIE) as well as the explosion severity (K_st and P_max) for several of the most easily ignitable pharmaceutical powders. We found a significant increase in the MIE and decreases in the K_st and P_max by reducing the oxygen level to 12% to 15% v/v. The changes in MIE and explosion severity mean that partial inertion along with control of static should provide a satisfactory basis of safety for most unit operations handling these powders. We share these results to encourage others to examine the behavior of similar organic powders. Further, we have used the adiabatic flame temperature from combustion calculations to model the P_max, limiting oxygen concentration, and MIE at reduced oxygen concentrations, and find very good agreement with the experimental values. This modeling can be a useful tool as a safe and economical alternative to testing when material is not available or for highly potent/toxic materials where testing is not preferred to avoid personnel exposure.

中文翻译：

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部分惯性是制药操作安全的基础，涉及高度易燃粉末，并根据氧气浓度对燃烧特性进行建模

在处理对点火高度敏感的材料时，制药厂通常需要使用惰化系统或其他合适的防爆系统。调节机构通常需要充分的惯性，这可能很难维持且昂贵。这项工作测量了氧气浓度对几种最易点燃的药物粉末的最小点燃能量（MIE）以及爆炸强度（K _st和P _max）的影响。我们发现MIE显着增加，K _st和P _max减小通过将氧气含量降低到12％至15％v / v。MIE和爆炸严重性的变化意味着部分惰化以及对静电的控制应为处理这些粉末的大多数单位操作提供令人满意的安全基础。我们分享这些结果，以鼓励其他人研究类似有机粉末的行为。此外，我们已使用燃烧计算中的绝热火焰温度来模拟P _max，极限氧浓度和降低的氧浓度下的MIE，并与实验值非常吻合。当无法获得材料时，此建模可以作为安全，经济的替代测试的有用工具，或者对于不希望进行测试以避免人员暴露的强效/有毒材料，则可以作为测试的安全和经济的选择。