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Author: Veress Árpád · Explosion-protection expertDAILY Ex - 16 SEPTEMBER 2026
Three barriers that are easy to miss because none of them looks like Ex equipment. IECEx turns toward personnel competence, which raises the operational question a training certificate cannot answer. The CSB Bio-Lab investigation shows water intrusion into an incompatible material escalating into fire and a large toxic release. And an energy optimisation request to reduce dryer extraction runs into the fact that minimum airflow is an explosion-protection barrier rather than a setpoint. The pattern for Operations: identify the barrier, its minimum acceptable condition, what degrades it, how it is verified, and who authorizes operation.
What changed + what happened + one Operational Ex decision
- What changed - today IECEx turns from equipment toward people
Today at the IECEx Annual Meetings in Beijing, the morning programme is the ExPCC - IECEx Personnel Competence Certification Scheme, followed by the Industrial Symposium. This is worth watching because Ex integrity ultimately depends not only on certified equipment, but on competent people selecting, installing, inspecting, maintaining and repairing it.
Operational Ex comment: A training certificate alone does not answer the operational question.
For the Head of Operations:
task → required Ex competence → competent individual → authorization → supervision where necessary → evidence
Contractor competence belongs in exactly the same chain.
- What happened - Bio-Lab: water reached a reactive chemical
A useful recent investigation is the CSB’s Bio-Lab Conyers case, whose final report was released on 21 July 2026. The September 2024 incident involved chemical decomposition, fire and a large toxic release at a facility handling pool and spa chemicals.
The broader operational lesson is powerful: something as ordinary as water intrusion into incompatible material can initiate an abnormal chemical condition that escalates far beyond the original event.
Operational Ex comment: Not every explosion/fire scenario begins with failed Ex electrical equipment.
Operations must understand:
material incompatibility → abnormal condition → gas/vapour generation → ventilation/containment → ignition/escalation
For the Head of Operations:
Which apparently harmless utility, cleaning or maintenance activity could introduce something incompatible into our process?
One Operational Ex use case - “Can we reduce the dryer extraction?”
Today’s request comes from energy optimization:
“The dryer exhaust is one of our biggest energy consumers. Can we turn it down?”
A perfectly reasonable Operations question.
But an solvent-containing dryer depends on ventilation to keep flammable concentration within its defined safe operating range.
The example therefore determines the minimum required airflow for the actual solvent loading and compares it with the real airflow. It also considers the applicable temperature-corrected explosion-limit basis in the relevant operating range.
So: less airflow → higher solvent concentration → smaller safety margin
The decision should be: current loading → actual airflow → minimum required airflow → available margin → proposed reduction → MoC → authorization → verification
Energy optimization is possible.
But the minimum airflow is not simply an energy setting.
It is an explosion-protection barrier.
- What Head of Operations should do
Today’s common thread is knowing what keeps the plant safe.
Competent people are barriers.
Material compatibility is a barrier.
Ventilation is a barrier.
The Head of Operations doesn’t need to personally calculate every limit.
But Operations must know:
What is the barrier? → What can degrade/change it? → What is its minimum acceptable condition? → How do we verify it? → Who can authorize operation?
And once that minimum condition cannot be demonstrated:
STOP → restore → verify → return to service.
That is Operational Ex.