Chemical plants also need to handle gases, such as ammonia and chlorine. Obviously, the tanks and lines need to be impervious to the gas, and unreactive with it.
The reactor will need to be chemically resistant (e.g., glass lining), equipped with temperature controls and a sampling port, and built to withstand pressure. As a second line of defense against overpressure, the reactor will have a vent sealed with a rupture disk (probably made of graphite), and leading to a containment tank. To protect against fire, the headspace of the reactor can be filled with an inert gas, usually nitrogen or carbon dioxide.
Liquid-solid separations typically involve cakes with a large surface area, and hence there will be an opportunity for solvents to evaporate. Solvent vapor exposure can be controlled by local ventilation.
Insofar as providing chemically resistant vessels is concerned, we will want to recreate borosilicate glass (see Cooper, "In Vitro Veritas," Grantville Gazette 5) and various steel alloys. For secure tubing, rubbers (see Cooper, "Bouncing Back," Grantville Gazette 6) and plastics are important.
In Grantville, there is ample electricity to run electrical fans, but elsewhere, fans and pumps are likely to be steam-driven.
Steelmaking
Coke, iron ore and limestone are fed into the blast furnace, where they are heated to over 3000°F. Either air (Bessemer process) or pure oxygen are blown through the molten iron. Dangers include intense radiant heat, spills of molten metal (which, if it comes into contact with a wet surface, causes a sudden and highly explosive release of steam), carbon monoxide generated by the furnace, noise, and unpleasant encounters with moving equipment. (USW; Burgess).
Metal Fabrication
In a foundry, molten metal is poured into a mold, and allowed to cool, creating a metal article of a desired shape. Hazards include noise, vibration, heat stress, and exposure to silica dust (from the foundry sand used to make the mold) and carbon monoxide.
Metals are machined with various cutting and grinding tools. In Virginia DeMarce's "'Til We Meet Again" (Grantville Gazette, Volume 4), we witness the dangers of an airborne power saw.
Then there is forging, which reforms a metal by impact or pressure. In Karen Bergstralh's "Tool or Die" (Grantville Gazette, Volume 9), the villain is a drop forge. While being caught by the drop hammer is the most obvious hazard, forging was one of the first industries identified as posing a threat to hearing. Hammer operators can expect to experience sound levels of as much as 108-dB. (Burgess 103).
Conclusion
All too often, safety legislation has been prompted by tragedy. The 1911 Tringle Shirtwaist Fire, in which over 140 workers jumped to their deaths, prompted New York's first building safety code. In the wake of the disaster, New York formed a Factory Investigating Commission, which in turn secured enactment of twenty state occupational safety and health laws.
It is true that during the first decade following the Ring of Fire, the number of industrial workers will be small compared to late nineteenth century America or Britain. However, that will change. The up-timers are making a concerted effort to raise the USE (and Sweden) to a nineteenth century economic level.
They must "gear-up" despite the fact that the educational level of the early seventeenth century USE and Sweden is substantially lower than that of the nineteenth century models. They need to do this quickly, to satisfy war needs. And the technology they are trying to recreate is one which they may know only from books, not from experience.
Accidents are inevitable. The question is what level can we tolerate without causing a reaction which endangers, not only the industrial revolution, but also the political one—the "second American Revolution."
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THE END
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