1935 – Oct 7, gas explosion, Glidden soybean process plant, Chicago, IL                      —     11

–11  NFPA. “Glidden Soybean Plant Explosion.” NFPA Quarterly, V29, No. 3, Jan 1936, p.233.

–11  Soyinfo Center. “History of the Glidden Company’s Soya Products/Chemurgy Div.” 2004.

Narrative Information

National Fire Protection Association: “An explosion which caused the death of 11 men and injured 45 others occurred at the soybean processing plant of the Glidden Company in Chicago, Illinois, at 11:38 A.M., on Monday, October 7, 1935. The processing section of the plant located at 1845 North Laramie Avenue was almost totally de­stroyed with a loss estimated at $600,000. Considerable glass was broken in surrounding residences and business properties.

 

“The Glidden Company, with national headquarters at Cleveland, Ohio, operated the Chicago plant for the production of soybean oil, meal, protein and lecithin. It had a capacity of about 4000 bushels of beans a day….

 

“Story of the Explosion.  Operation of the extraction unit had been suspended for a period of about four weeks because the supply of beans had been exhausted. The new crop had just become available, and the unit had started operating again the morn­ing of the day the explosion occurred. The regular employees had been re­tained during the shut-down period, and the plant had been completely over­hauled. Piping was taken down, cleaned and painted, new gaskets were fitted and everything was placed in what was believed to be first class condition.  With the regular employees on hand for the starting of the plant, no particular  difficulty was experienced in resuming operations. The same process in use when the plant shut down was being employed. About three hours after the plant was started some of the employees detected an odor of gas, and one of the foremen in the Protein Department was on his way to report this to the manager when the explosion occurred.

 

“Eye-witnesses and others in the vicinity report that there was apparently one major blast which wrecked the buildings and rocked the neighborhood. Office employees and workers in the laboratory, drafting room and other sec­tions of the plant were showered with broken glass when the windows were shattered. The walls of the protein building, the tank building and the bean preparation building were demolished, and the bricks scattered for some distance in all directions. Many automobiles parked near the plant were damaged when falling debris crashed through their tops. The extraction building and the lecithin building were wrecked, but the floors did not drop and some of the equipment remained in place. Both buildings, however, were so badly damaged that it will be necessary to tear down or realign the parts which remained standing. The south wall of the warehouse was bulged outward, and it will be necessary to rebuild it.

 

“The fire and police departments responded promptly, and ambulances rushed the injured to hospitals. Fortunately no fire broke out in the ruins of the demolished buildings, and the fire fighting activities were limited to extin­guishing a fire in an automobile probably due to a short circuit caused by falling material. Rescue work was started promptly and continued day and night until all bodies were recovered. At the same time investigations were started by the company and other agencies to determine the cause of the explo­sion and develop methods of guarding against a repetition of such an occur­rence.

 

“Conclusions from Investigation.  Before attempting to draw conclusions consideration was given to the possible hazards present in the process used at this plant.  At the elevator where the beans were received and stored the same dust explosion hazard existed that would be present in a similar elevator handling grain. In the bean preparation building where the beans were cleaned, cracked and flaked prac­tically the same dust explosion hazard existed as in a feed mill. The extraction unit was considered the hazardous part of the plant, both by company officials and insurance inspectors, because of the use in this section of hexane[1] for the extraction of the oil from the bean flakes. At the other end of the plant in the protein building was another dust explosion hazard. At this point in the process press cake from the filter presses was broken up, dried in an oil-fired flash type drier, ground, screened and sacked. Here again the dust explosion hazard would be similar to a feed preparation plant with the additional hazard of the oil-fired drier.

 

“In drawing conclusions attention has been given to statements of com­pany officials regarding the process in use at the plant, as well as statements of employees concerning operating conditions before and at the time of the explosion. A study has been made of the building layout and machinery loca­tion, and the ruins have been inspected as far as possible for any evidence which would indicate the point of origin and source of the ignition.

 

“It seems to be generally agreed by those studying the ruins that the explo­sion centered in the upper part of the tank building of the protein section, and the consensus of opinion is that it was an explosion of gas. The man­ner in which the building walls were shattered and the absence of fire fol­lowing the explosion indicate that the explosive mixture was gas and air in proportions conducive to the rapid passage of flame. This opinion is upheld by the statements of employees who said that they smelled gas before the explosion and the fact that the manager and other officials were in the  plant endeavoring to find the source of the gas leak.

 

“At variance with this conclusion is the fact that the only man burned in the explosion was the employee stationed at one of the flaking rolls in the bean preparation building and the evidence that the circuit breaker of the motor on one of the flaking rolls had opened four or five times during the morning. He thought he might have been burned by a flash of flame from the motor, but feels that the big explosion came from the protein building.

 

“The problem in the investigation has been to determine how the gas accumulated in the tank building and how it became, ignited. From the evi­dence assembled it is our opinion that gas from the extraction building passed into the tank building at or near the top of the fire wall separating the two units, or possibly through the pipe carrying condenser water into the tank building. The tank building, a large open area without floors in its 50 ft. height, had little or no ventilation because the weather was cool and windows had not been opened. Probably a large pocket of gas accumulated at that point. The gas could have been ignited when the flash occurred at the flaking roll. In fact it is quite likely that the burns received by the employee at the flaking roll were received in a mild or minor dust explosion at that point. This flash, passing through the doorway between the bean preparation building and the tank building, could have been the source of ignition for the main explosion which wrecked the plant. It is also possible that gas was present in the bean preparation building as well as in the tank building and that the motor circuit breaker opening or a flash at the roll provided a direct ignition for the gas and air mixture.

 

“Recommendations for Explosion Prevention.  As a result of the study of the process made in connection with this in­vestigation it is recommended that certain precautions should be taken in plants of this kind to guard against dust explosions as well as vapor explosions.

 

  1. In elevators handling soybeans, the safety code for the prevention of dust explosions in grain elevators as prepared by the Dust Explosion Hazards Committee of the National Fire Protection Association should be followed.
  2. In plants grinding or milling soybeans or preparing them for processing, the safety code prepared by the same committee for the prevention of dust explosions in flour and feed mills should be followed.
  3. Soybean elevators and buildings in which grinding, milling or other preparatory processes are performed should be segregated from other sections of the plant, and should have vents in the walls or roof to release explosion pressures without structural damage. Such vents, in the form of hinged sash or light panels, should have an area of one sq. ft. for each 80 cu. Ft. of the building, room or bin.
  4. The same precautions suggested for soybean milling or preparation units should be adopted in plants preparing protein from soybeans, particu­larly in the drying section.
  5. Dryers in all parts of a plant where flammable dust is present should be separated from other sections of the plant, and the outside walls should be equipped with the above recommended amount of venting facilities.
  6. Dust collectors should be installed outside or vented outside of the building.
  7. To guard against any inherent dust explosion hazard, special atten­tion should be given to the type of drier used.
  8. In soybean processing plants using the extraction process all pos­sible precautions should be taken to provide for the safe operation of such units because the solvents generally employed constitute a fire and explosion hazard.
  9. Where hazardous solvents are used consideration should be given to the practicability of installing instruments which will detect the presence of flammable vapors and give warning when the concentration approaches the lower explosive limits.
  10. Attention should be given to the development of a non- flammable solvent for use in such processes.” 

 

(NFPA. “Glidden Soybean Plant Explosion.” NFPA Quarterly, V29/N3, Jan 1936, pp. 233-240.)

 

Soyinfo Center: “Glidden was a pioneer in solvent extraction in America, and their plant was one of the first in the nation. Like most pioneers, they learned as they went along and paid dearly for their mistakes. On 7 October 1935, their solvent plant (which had been in operation for only 10 months) was totally destroyed in a disastrous explosion from a hexane vapor leak. It leveled a city block, including the adjacent soy protein and lecithin plants and the nearby research laboratory, killing 11 people and injuring 45 more (Annual Report 1935; Price and Brown 1936; Fortune 1949). This tragedy slowed the introduction of solvent extraction to America. Fortunately the entire operation was well covered by insurance. After finding the cause of the accident, Glidden boldly rebuilt the crushing plant to embody the last word in safety, buying two new Hildebrandt units of the same size, plus a bank of Anderson Expellers. In place of the full-scale protein plant, however, they built only a large protein pilot plant. By the spring of 1936 the system was back in operation.” (Soyinfo Center. “History of the Glidden Company’s Soya Products/Chemurgy Division.” 2004.)

Sources

 

National Fire Protection Association. “Glidden Soybean Plant Explosion.”  Quarterly of the National Fire Protection Association, Vol. 29, No. 3, January 1936, pp. 233-240.

 

Shurtleff, William and Akiko Aoyagi. “History of the Glidden Company’s Soya Products/Chemurgy Division.” Soyinfo Center. 2004. Accessed 3-27-2013 at: http://www.soyinfocenter.com/HSS/glidden.php

 

 

 

 

 

[1]  Hexane is a light flammable liquid with flash point of 0° F. or lower. The vapor is explosive in mixtures with air, with explosive limits 1.1% to 4.2% according to data from a solvent producer. The maximum rate of flame propagation occurs with a 2% mixture. The specific gravity of the vapor is 2.91 (air= 1).