Hazard identification posed by plant protection products during warehouse fires

Abstract

In addition to fertilisers, plant protection products are essential in today's agricultural production. The increase in the human population leads to the need to optimise agricultural production, with an increasing demand for plant protection products. Historically, there have been serious fires at plant protection product storage facilities with devastating consequences for the environment. For this reason, it is worth investigating what risks arise for people and the environment during a fire at storage sites for these substances. In this article, tests were carried out for three plant protection products containing azoxystrobin as the active substance, in order to investigate the effects of the additives on combustion processes. Tests of combustion parameters were performed using a cone calorimeter. A tube furnace with asphyxiating and irritant gas analysers and gas chromatography with a mass spectrometer were used to analyse the resulting gas products. The Plant Protection Products tested achieved high values for combustion parameters. Analysis of the substances produced during their combustion showed that large amounts of asphyxiating and irritating gases (CO, N₂O, NO, SO₂, NH₃, HCl, CH₂O, HCN) were generated.

Keywords: Azoxystrobin; Cone calorimeter; Environmental pollution; GC–MS; Plant protection products; Purser furnace.