The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering’s (CJCE) latest virtual issue is now live: The Global Scope of Process Safety Research. This virtual issue comprises articles published in 2023 and 2024 from CJCE’s recent Process Safety Special Series. Paul Amyotte, CJCE Associate Editor, and the guest editor of this special series, outlines the theme of this virtual issue:

“In this virtual issue, The Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering (CJCE) features recently published articles (2023 and 2024) from the special series on process safety. The theme of the special series, The Global Scope of Process Safety Research, is exemplified by the experimental and computational research described in these 12 papers drawn from the Americas, Asia, and Europe.

We hope you will enjoy reading about your colleagues’ efforts aimed at making the chemical process industries a safer environment for both workers and the public. Please also watch for further papers in the special series, which will appear in separate journal issues over the coming months.”

Within this issue, you will find articles with topics ranging from across the process safety theme. In “Optimization of firefighting strategies in process plants with emphasis on domino effects and safe evacuation”, the Editor’s Choice article from the December 2023 issue of CJCE, authors Nima Khakzad, Chao Chen, Genserik Reniers, and Paul Amyotte “develop a methodology for effective firefighting under insufficient resources. The methodology seeks out two safety goals via optimal firefighting strategies: (1) providing for the safety of evacuees, and (2) reducing the risk of domino effects.”

In “A robust neural network model for fault detection in the presence of mislabelled data”, the Editor’s Choice article from the April 2024 issue, authors Mohammad Alauddin, Faisal Khan, Syed Imtiaz, Salim Ahmed, and Paul Amyotte present “a robust neural network model for addressing the mislabelled and low-quality data in detecting faults and process abnormalities. The approach is based on harnessing data quality features along with supervisory labels in the network training…The method has been examined for detecting abnormalities in two case studies; a continuous stirred tank heater problem for detecting leaks and the Tennessee Eastman chemical process for detecting step and sticking faults.”

In “A mechanistic model for industrial workplace design based on inherent safety and health concepts”, an Issue Highlight article from the September 2024 issue, authors Xiaoming Gao, Guohua Chen, Caiyi Xiong, Xiaofeng Li, Yimeng Zhao, and Honghao Chen “establish a mechanistic model of using inherent safety and health concepts to conduct industrial workplace risk reduction strategies during the project planning stage. Accordingly, a dedicated implementation tool termed inherently safer and healthier design model for industrial workplaces (ISHDM-IW) is developed.”

Articles within this virtual issue are open access or have been set as free-to-read for a limited time. Be sure to access this issue and explore exiting recent research from around the world in the process safety field.