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I have some familiarity with the type of equipment that blew up , its a Kamyr Continuous Digester located in the Jay Maine pulp and paper mill. The press called it an explosion, most people would assume it is some sort of rapid chemical reaction. Pure speculation is that this was just a long large diameter pressure vessel full of steam that for some reason to be determined had a rapid failure on the top end of the piece of equipment. The steam rapidly expanded throwing everything in the vessel up into the air. The steam absorbed in the wood chips expanded so rapidly it turned the fiber into fuzzballs. How no one was hurt or killed is amazing. The best comparison is the bottle rockets that kids use, they screw a soda bottle with some water in it and then pump air under pressure into the bottle,. The bottle is then pointed upwards and the bottle is released, The air inside the bottle expands and pushes the water out of the bottle sending it up in the air. In this case the very large "bottle" was pointing down with the steam blowing out the top.
The digester is a pressure cooker, mix wood chips with steam and cooking liquor which is a caustic solution made with lime and it breaks the wood chips down into wood fibers and lignin which is what holds the fibers together. The stuff raining down is that mix. The company is going to be pressure washing a lot of homes and vehicles in the area. If may or may not damage the paint but it leaves a very heavy deposits. A lot of mills in the area used to have a car wash at the exit of the employee parking lot with a slightly acid solution in it to get the deposits off. The locals will not need to lime their gardens this year they probaly will see the grass and landscaping nice and green this summer . The lignin will get broken down eventually but when it runs into the local river it could absorb a lot of the oxygen in the water. Luckily its high water season with lot of water running in the rivers so there shouldn't be any impact.
As for the folks working there, its going to take lot to clean up. A continuous digester is not off the shelf and will need to be custom made. to ASME boiler and pressure vessel code. Hopefully the new company who bought the place had insurance in place as its going to be quite awhile before that digester is replaced.
I have some familiarity with the type of equipment that blew up , its a Kamyr Continuous Digester located in the Jay Maine pulp and paper mill. The press called it an explosion, most people would assume it is some sort of rapid chemical reaction. Pure speculation is that this was just a long large diameter pressure vessel full of steam that for some reason to be determined had a rapid failure on the top end of the piece of equipment. The steam rapidly expanded throwing everything in the vessel up into the air. The steam absorbed in the wood chips expanded so rapidly it turned the fiber into fuzzballs. How no one was hurt or killed is amazing. The best comparison is the bottle rockets that kids use, they screw a soda bottle with some water in it and then pump air under pressure into the bottle,. The bottle is then pointed upwards and the bottle is released, The air inside the bottle expands and pushes the water out of the bottle sending it up in the air. In this case the very large "bottle" was pointing down with the steam blowing out the top.
The digester is a pressure cooker, mix wood chips with steam and cooking liquor which is a caustic solution made with lime and it breaks the wood chips down into wood fibers and lignin which is what holds the fibers together. The stuff raining down is that mix. The company is going to be pressure washing a lot of homes and vehicles in the area. If may or may not damage the paint but it leaves a very heavy deposits. A lot of mills in the area used to have a car wash at the exit of the employee parking lot with a slightly acid solution in it to get the deposits off. The locals will not need to lime their gardens this year they probaly will see the grass and landscaping nice and green this summer . The lignin will get broken down eventually but when it runs into the local river it could absorb a lot of the oxygen in the water. Luckily its high water season with lot of water running in the rivers so there shouldn't be any impact.
As for the folks working there, its going to take lot to clean up. A continuous digester is not off the shelf and will need to be custom made. to ASME boiler and pressure vessel code. Hopefully the new company who bought the place had insurance in place as its going to be quite awhile before that digester is replaced.
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