Two of the World’s Leading HF Experts Answer the $64,000 Question: “Does MHF behave the same as HF?”

Some Thoughts on the South Coast AQMD Rule 1410 Refinery Committee Meeting by the TRAA Science Advisory Panel

Several members of the TRAA Science Advisory Panel attended the AQMD Refinery Committee Meeting in Wilmington CA on September 22, 2018. This was a particularly important meeting because two of the world’s leading experts on the dangers of hydrogen-fluoride use in refineries gave presentations: Dr. Ronald Koopman on the large-scale HF release experiments — The Goldfish Tests — he conducted in the Nevada desert in 1987, and John Cornwell of Quest Consultants, conductor of the only field-scale MHF release tests in Quest’s Oklahoma facility in 1993.

The high point of the meeting was when these two experts answered the $64,000 Question: “Would 6-wt-% MHF act the same as pure HF?

Dr. Koopman expressed his profound skepticism that the additive would do much good — “I would guess that would be a very small effect.” (Watch: https://youtu.be/qwo08BtEQuM?t=7460)

John Cornwell emphasized the small amount of additive is unlikely to have much of an effect, and there’s no data to show that it does. He pointed out that physical chemists use mole percent (molecule count), and states, “If MHF is 6% by weight and 1% by mole, and you are going to modify the vapor pressure or modify the characteristics of the fluid, you’ve got to have some data to show that’s true” (Watch: https://youtu.be/qwo08BtEQuM?t=8874).

This publicly-stated testimony by the world’s two leading experts expressed a high degree of skepticism of the refineries’ safety assertions for MHF. They are in line with the TRAA Science Advisory Panel and the SCAQMD Staff. MHF and HF behave the same and both form ground-hugging toxic clouds.