Design and safety assessment of a storage system for a reactive organic peroxide in an industrial chemical plant

To meet modern sustainability targets, the chemical industry faces a dual challenge: expanding production capacity while minimizing its environmental footprint. However, greener processes do not automatically translate into safer operations, making the simultaneous reduction of process and environmental risks a key engineering priority. Organic peroxides are widely used in chemical industry, but their extreme reactivity raises significant challenges during handling and storage. This work presents the conceptual design of a bulk storage system for a high-concentration organic peroxide in an existing chemical facility undergoing a capacity expansion. Three configurations are assessed: a fully bulk storage system, a hybrid configuration, and the existing Intermediate Bulk Container-based system. The proposed solutions are developed in accordance with engineering standards and regulatory requirements, with particular emphasis on process safety through the assessment of storage location, equipment sizing, and design strategies aimed at minimizing operational risks. Loss of containment and associated consequences are modeled to support and validate the proposed configurations. Finally, a detailed cost evaluation is carried out to assess the economic impact of the project, resulting in an estimated capital expenditure of 871000 € for the fully bulk configuration and 910000 € for the hybrid one, including 327000 € for the revamping of the existing Intermediate Bulk Container system. Given the project's objective of improving the safety of organic peroxide handling, capital cost alone is not sufficient to assess the feasibility of the proposed solutions. Therefore, a cost-benefit analysis is done to highlight the operational advantages achieved through the proposed solution. Given the limited information available, this study provides a basis for the preliminary design of large scale organic peroxide storage systems, whose industrial relevance is expected to grow in the coming years.