Abstract
Agro-industrial waste, such as the peel of native Peruvian potatoes, offers a scalable opportunity to produce functional hydrogels, although the intrinsic safety of these new bioprocesses remains unknown. This work applies the Inherent Safety Index methodology to the production of a magnetic hydrogel synthesized from native Peruvian potato peel starch. The necessary process data were obtained from an Aspen Plus simulation in previously published work. Physicochemical, toxicological, and reactivity data for the compounds involved were obtained from safety data sheets to develop chemical-hazard subindices. As a result, the most significant risks were associated with the exothermic nature of graft polymerization, potential oxidizer-fuel interactions between ammonium persulfate and ethanol, and the toxicity and corrosiveness of acrylic acid and iron salts. Therefore, special safeguards must be considered to avoid risky operations. The process achieved an overall ISI of 27 by adding the chemical index of 16 and a process safety index of 11. These results indicate that producing a magnetic hydrogel from native potato peel is potentially hazardous and highlight areas for improvement in industrial-scale-up.
