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Watching Paint Dry: Hypothesis Testing of Ignition Scenarios Involving Spontaneous Heating
Posted by: Sir Gary (IP Logged)
Date: January 20, 2022 07:36AM
Title of a talk John Lentini allegedly gave; although I don’t know what he had to say about it.
Got a fire in a potato-crisps factory where it is suspected oil-soiled potato-crisp remains spontaneously ignited;
my principal says it’s a cut- & dry case (excuse the pun), but I’d like some scientific data supporting this hypothesis.
Problem is that I can’t get a Spec. Sheet/MSDS of the frying oil out of the manufacturer or their supplier,
but I have the next best thing - a sample of the frying oil they drained at the end of shift.
From my college chemistry >30 years ago, I remember a wet-chemistry Iodine-Value test for polyunsaturatedness
but when I mention this to the forensic labs here, I draw a blank.
Food-industry labs I were referred to just want to do the Free Fatty-acid (FFA) test.
Many moons ago I shared a tent in African bush with a Swiss Chemist who was of opinion that
profiling the oil residue’s various C16- & C18 mono-di-/tri-alkenes by GC-MS was the way to go,
but I suspect of I propose that to the lab rats it would illicit dead-goldfish expressions.
What would the Fire sages recommend as a minimum regarding due diligence regarding self-heating/auto-ignition?
Got a fire in a potato-crisps factory where it is suspected oil-soiled potato-crisp remains spontaneously ignited;
my principal says it’s a cut- & dry case (excuse the pun), but I’d like some scientific data supporting this hypothesis.
Problem is that I can’t get a Spec. Sheet/MSDS of the frying oil out of the manufacturer or their supplier,
but I have the next best thing - a sample of the frying oil they drained at the end of shift.
From my college chemistry >30 years ago, I remember a wet-chemistry Iodine-Value test for polyunsaturatedness
but when I mention this to the forensic labs here, I draw a blank.
Food-industry labs I were referred to just want to do the Free Fatty-acid (FFA) test.
Many moons ago I shared a tent in African bush with a Swiss Chemist who was of opinion that
profiling the oil residue’s various C16- & C18 mono-di-/tri-alkenes by GC-MS was the way to go,
but I suspect of I propose that to the lab rats it would illicit dead-goldfish expressions.
What would the Fire sages recommend as a minimum regarding due diligence regarding self-heating/auto-ignition?
Watching Paint Dry: Hypothesis Testing of Ignition Scenarios Involving Spontaneous Heating Sorry, only registered users may post in this forum.