Hazardous Chemical Storage in Industrial & Trading Enterprises – A Case Study on Improper Oil-Based Paint Storage

Case Analysis

Recently, a workplace safety inspection at a wood products manufacturing workshop has attracted widespread industry attention. During the inspection, several open barrels of oil-based paint were found near the workshop entrance, with incomplete hazard labels and unclear safety warnings.

Unmarked chemical containers are already a major hazard. Open storage of flammable and explosive hazardous chemicals directly violates core safety regulations and creates severe fire and explosion risks for daily production.

Key Hazards of Oil-Based Paint

vapors form explosive mixtures with air.

Major Non-Compliance Identified

Open storage of flammable and explosive hazardous chemicals – including oil-based paint, rust removers and thinners – inside the production workshop does not comply with national hazardous chemical storage standards.

Compliance Rectification Recommendations

1.Build a dedicated outdoor hazardous chemical warehouse that meets fireproof, explosion-proof and ventilation requirements.

2.For on-site temporary storage, establish an intermediate hazardous chemical storage room with inventory limited to one day’s usage.

3.For small-volume applications, use FM-approved hazardous chemical storage cabinets to simplify compliance and ensure safe storage.

Critical Requirements for Compliant Hazardous Chemical Storage Cabinets

Choose qualified products from reputable manufacturers. The cabinet body must be made of steel with a thickness of not less than 1.2mm and a tensile strength of not less than 345MPa. The appropriate model can be selected according to the nature and quantity of hazardous chemicals to cover various storage scenarios.

Hazardous chemicals must not be stored in excess to avoid gas accumulation and potential risks; the internal structure of the cabinet must not be damaged without authorization to prevent a decrease in protective performance.

If the storage cabinet is in a corrosive environment or needs to store corrosive hazardous chemicals, targeted anti-corrosion measures must be taken to avoid safety hazards caused by corrosion from the source.

Hazardous chemicals inside the cabinet must be stored in sealed containers, used in conjunction with leak-proof trays to further enhance leakage prevention capabilities and avoid secondary hazards caused by leakage.

After the storage cabinet is installed, the reserved ventilation holes must be connected to the outdoor area to ensure that the gas is directly discharged and not circulated indoors. If the company has multiple storage cabinets, ventilation inlet and outlet pipes must be set up separately according to the nature of the hazardous chemicals stored in each cabinet. It is strictly forbidden for multiple ventilation pipes to flow back to a single main pipe to avoid mixing of different hazardous chemical gases and causing reactions.

Compliant: Galvanized steel pipes/galvanized steel sheet ducts (most commonly used, suitable for most scenarios); 304/316 stainless steel pipes (corrosion resistant, explosion-proof preferred); conductive PVC/flame-retardant PP (with static grounding, only suitable for weak corrosion and non-explosive high-risk scenarios);

Strictly Prohibited: Ordinary PVC pipes, plastic flexible hoses, corrugated pipes (not fireproof, easily melted, easily accumulates static electricity, and easily generates sparks); rubber hoses, non-metallic flexible hoses (not corrosion resistant, easily ages, not anti-static, and prone to collapse in a fire);

Static electricity accumulation is a hidden danger during the storage of hazardous chemicals, and can easily trigger explosions of flammable and explosive gases. Therefore, hazardous chemical storage cabinets, metal pallets inside the cabinets, metal ventilation ducts, etc., must all be properly grounded as required to ensure that static electricity is discharged in a timely manner and to avoid the risk of static electricity ignition from the source.