14 replies to this topic

[carine]

Does anyone of you experience with ammonia leaking then penetrate into product??

[Simon]

Does anyone of you experience with ammonia leaking then penetrate into product??

Can you provide a littel more background information Carine.

What is your product?
What is your process?
Ammonia leaking from where?

[Abdul Qudoos]

Does anyone of you experience with ammonia leaking then penetrate into product??

I have experience with ammonia leaking then penetrate into product-
In the making of Butter and Margarine through resting tube.

Are you dealing with same or any other product please let me know, so that i may try to solve your problem.

Abdul Qudoos

[carine]

i'm dealing with the ice product, our process involve heat exchange concept by using liquid ammonia,and liquid ammonia (outside the vertical stainless steel tube) cooled the water (inside a stainless steel tube) to form ice, there is a possibility the ammonia leak into the tube when there is hole on the tube. Anyone of u have a idea how to prevent the ammonia penetrate into our product or how we can detect there is a ammonia leak, it is the pungent smell or else ??

[Charles.C]

Dear carine,

Sounds like yr steel is not high enough quality ?Age ? defective welding (argon-arc?)
No experience yr specific process but hv with ammonia compressors.
One thing for sure, if you can smell it and see a hole, quite likely to hv a problem since, as you probably know, ammmonia is highly soluble in water. One way to evaluate for gross contamination is by pH of course since normal melted ice shud be around 7.

Rgds / Charles.C

[carine]

i just gone through Initial audit for ISO 22000, there have i queation that the auditor raise up, does ammonia leak into our product, then consume it. Will ammonia can Can lead us fatal?? Can anyone tell me or share u comment

[Charles.C]

Dear carine,

Yes, ammonia has poisonous capabilities.

http://www.gulfcryo....pdf/Ammonia.pdf

http://cartwright.ch..._anhydrous.html

http://www.cdc.gov/m...ml/00000726.htm

http://www.ingentaco...5n3cm.alexandra

Rgds / Charles.C

[infoiqc]

See:
http://www.dhs.ca.go.....E 101705B.pdf

http://www.mass.gov/...recondition.doc

Gail
infoiqc

[Charles.C]

Dear Gail / infoiqc,

Thks for the nice links

Rgds / Charles.C

[Simon]

Did this help Carine - have you any feedback to give?

[MDG]

Immediate corrective and preventive measure is to use plenty of water to dissolve ammonia. Water will help to reduce the toxicity level.

This is the common practice for ammonia based plant.

[Tony-C]

i'm dealing with the ice product, our process involve heat exchange concept by using liquid ammonia,and liquid ammonia (outside the vertical stainless steel tube) cooled the water (inside a stainless steel tube) to form ice,

Hi Carine

Unless you have a big hole in your tubes it is likley to be very difficult to detect small levels of ammonia. What you need to do is arrange a pressure test on your equipment to detect holes. The alternative is to make sure that the product pressure exceeds the ammonia (Cooling System) pressure. This will mean that product will leak into the ammonia (Cooling system) but ammonia will not leak into your product.

Regards

Tony

[carine]

Do u will include this phenomena in you Hazard Analysis when ammonia leak into u product?? Can we regard it as oPRP or CCP?? FYI, we got nothing or control measures on it? Any idea of u about this? Many thanks

[Charles.C]

Dear carine,

This is surely a prp within the area of equipment maintenance ??

Rgds / Charles.C

[Tony-C]

This is surely a prp within the area of equipment maintenance ??

Pressure Testing of the Tubes to check for pinholes would be a maintenance pre-requisite carried out during downtime. Normally this would be certificated by a competent contractor.

If you go down the route of over pressure then I would normally have pressure gauges on the cooling system and product. The product pressure must be maintained above that of the cooling system. This is measureable and can be monitored so, depending on how you assess the severity of ammonia getting into product, I suspect this is probably a CCP.

Regards,

Tony