Abstract：Inherently safer design methods and strategies were briefly reviewed in this article, and several indexes to evaluate the potential harms of different reaction routines were introduced. Multiply steady states exist in chemical processes because of the strong nonlinearity of the processes, the stabilities of the steady states were usually different from each other, and the characteristics of the stable steady states are also different even if they are very close to each other. In addition, singularity points accompanied by oscillation phenomenon should be avoided for stable operation and consistent product quality. A quantitative stability index was proposed to describe the stability of all stable steady states, and an index to describe how close an operation point was allowed to singularity points was proposed. These indexes were useful in inherently safer process design.
