Chemically Speaking LLC is a specialty gas consulting company that can provide safety, environmental and emergency response support to users, transporters, distributors, waste disposers or manufacturers of specialty and industrial gases used in the chemical, medical, electronics and automotive industries. Chemically Speaking can also provide safety and emergency response training. Expert witness or incident investigation.
News
Jan 21, 2019
Chemically Speaking LLC is celebrating 10 Years on Feb 1, 2019! A milestone! I have had many compliments on the name but I can’t take credit for this, Courtney said Dad you can’t have a boring name how about this? It fits! I am now 67 and could easily retire but yet here I am with a full schedule!
During these 10 years I have been having great fun! I have never had to advertise, yet people find me. 2019 is already booked through April with lots of interesting projects on some cutting edge research or University Research projects that will change our lives. Of course. I’m still looking at blowing some things up in the interest of science! Hope to recreate events leading up to 4 fatal accidents with organometallic materials.
Am also looking at buying a small technology company with many patents for a client. What’s nice is I’m at the point where I can tell someone to stuff it. Did that twice in 2018! Felt good!
Travelled just under 2 million miles to exciting places around the world. I continue to do research on chemical safety and plan to do more in 2019. It’s nice to have a sense of purpose in life. Put together and chaired a seminar in April that had 70+ people worldwide pay $450 to attend on a highly reactive chemical that killed 5 in 2014 and destroyed a manufacturing plant in the US. Will do another seminar this year based on another year of research paid for by 2 customers.
One patent, 5 peer reviewed articles plus 6 non peer reviewed articles. Convinced 12 companies to chip in $500,000 of money and equipment to do 4 days of testing in New Mexico. Got them to fund some more testing a year later. Trained or presented to over 8,000 Firefighters or University employees.
Investigated 5 serious explosions and determined root causes of these during this time. In many the damage was so severe that it was a challenge to determine what might have happened.
There is nothing more rewarding than to pass on or discover new items that can help to protect people. I see many students from classes 10+ years ago that are still very eager to learn. Donate 20% of my time plus $20,000 every year to train this generation.
Getting paid a lot of money to do all this is icing on top! I would do most of this for nothing because its so interesting.
I am a very lucky guy!
Oct 20, 2018 Great news! After a year of ground breaking research on the shock sensitive gel formed by Hexachlorodislane, Prof Chen and I have been issued a Taiwan Patent "Process for Treatment of Hexachlorodislane and Hydrolzyed Product", Taiwan Patent I634939 Sept 11, 2018. This gel was involved in a fatal accident in Japan that killed 5 and injured 13. No one knows how to handle it. Sept 2018 Accidental Reaction of Metal Alkyls (Organometallic compounds) with Moisture or Air Causing a Cylinder to Rupture Metal Alkyls (Organometallic) are finding increasing use in the Silicon Semiconductor Fabrication Industries. The most commonly used are: Trimethylgallium (TMG) Trimethylaluminum (TMA) Trimethylindium (TMI) Diethylzinc (DEZ) The III-V device manufacturers typically dispense these from a cylinder configured to function as a bubbler (A carrier gas is bubbled through the liquid/solid to be saturated with the vapor). To maintain a precise concentration the cylinders are immersed in a heated or chilled water bath (glycol). These are located within the tool (MOCVD) and are maintained under positive pressure. A leak if it were to occur it would be outward causing a fire. The silicon device manufacturers on the other hand dispense Trimethylaluminum by pulling a vacuum on the vapor space of the canister in the ALD process (Atomic Layer Deposition). Due to the larger volumes used, a small host container is located close to the tool in the cleanroom. This is constantly filled by larger bulk supply and process containers located in the subfab, these are pressurized to fill the canister. Diethylzinc is used to grow a transparent conductive layer for a thin film photovoltaic cell. The use of Metal Alkyls is forecasted to increase dramatically for all uses. Pyrophoricity (spontaneous ignition) and fire is probably the most well-known hazard characteristic of these key organometallic compounds. A fire is commonly encountered during accidental release of Metal Alkyls into air. Most current safety precautions for handling these materials are associated with the pyrophoricity. Violent reaction with liquid water is also a well-known problem. The hydrolysis reaction may generate sufficient heat to trigger a self sustained decomposition reaction. Can the ingress of air or water in the ALD process trigger a self sustaining decomposition reaction that ruptures the container? These Metal Alkyls are also thermally unstable. Heat can trigger a decomposition reaction. Imagine a spill around a container that is on fire water cannot be used to cool the container or put out the fire. There have been 5 known fatalities plus numerous injuries due to these causes that ruptured the container Known incidents TMG container explosion after glycol is sucked in (date unknown) TMI container explosion after air sucked in, Dec 11,1998 (2 injuries) TMI container explosion after it was heated to decomposition temperature, 2012 (1 injury) TMI container explosion from moisture from valve, Oct 9, 2013 (1 fatality, 1 injury) TMA container explosion after air is sucked in, Jan 7, 2016 (4 injuries) TMI explosion, cause unknown, Feb 16, 2017 (3 injuries) TMI container explosion after air is sucked in, May 2018 (2 fatalities, 1 injury)
TMI container explosion, cause unknown, Sept 19, 2018 (1 fatality, 3 injuries)
A test program is to better understand what can happen with Trimethylaluminum in a typical ampoule (1 liter) in a worst case incident has been proposed for 2019. Open valve to suck in air. Drip 5 cc of water into container. If any of the tests do not trigger a decomposition reaction, heat container to decomposition temperature
The test program will Video from 4 angles High speed video of container rupture Canister pressure measurement Temperature measurement Overpressure sensors in a x-y grid
Test Directors: Prof. Jenq-Renn Chen, Department of Safety, Health and Environmental Engineering, National First University of Science and Technology, Kaohsiung, Taiwan. jrc@nfust.edu.tw
Eugene Ngai, Chemically Speaking LLC, Whitehouse Station, NJ 08889, eugene_ngai@comcast.net 
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