Inherent Safety Assessment of an Integrated Avocado Oil and Biochar Production Platform Using Fruit Pulp and Seed Residues in Northern Colombia

Integrated biomass valorization platforms can improve resource efficiency, but coupling solvent extraction with thermochemical conversion changes the inherent hazard profile of the overall system. This study assesses an integrated avocado oil–biochar platform based on Creole-Antillean avocado from northern Colombia, where edible oil is recovered from fruit pulp by hexane extraction and seed residues are converted to biochar by slow pyrolysis. The Heikkilä Inherent Safety Index (ISI) was applied to steady-state Aspen Plus® design data using the worst-case scoring rules. Exothermic secondary-reaction screening identified CO methanation as the controlling secondary reaction (Irs = 4), while the as-modeled coexistence of H2, CO, CH4, and free O2 in the 400 °C pyrolysis vapor was conservatively classified as a fire/explosion interaction (Iint = 4). Carbon monoxide controlled the substance-specific hazard term with max(Ifl + Iex + Itox) = 10. Classification of the cyclone-based equipment and process structure against the original criteria gave IEQ = 2 and IST = 2. The resulting chemical and process subindices were ICH = 18 and IPS = 9, respectively, giving a total ISI of 27. An elemental closure reconstructed from the R-YIELD product specification closes the C, H, and O bookkeeping, but free molecular O2 is explicitly treated as a yield-model artifact rather than as a physically validated pyrolysis product. The result is therefore interpreted as a conceptual-stage hazard screen rather than a safe/unsafe classification. Solvent containment, chemically consistent pyrolysis modeling, vapor-treatment design, thermal moderation, and process simplification are identified as the principal safety-oriented design priorities.