Looking for an explosion proof mobile phone for BASF Antwerpen in Belgium? The site on the right bank of the Scheldt is BASF's second largest production site, with roughly fifty production plants joined by pipelines in the Verbund: the by-products of one plant feed the next. This page is for the HSE, instrumentation and telecoms people who decide what may be carried through that layout. The IS-04Z1 is designed around intrinsic safety rather than a flameproof enclosure.
Launching Q4 2026 · ATEX certification and vendor documentation in progress
BASF describes Antwerpen as a production Verbund: every step from raw material to finished product sits close together, installations are linked by pipelines, and by-products from one process become raw materials for another. For a person with a handset, that means the classified areas are not a handful of fenced units. They are a continuous run of plants, pipe racks and tank areas, and an operator on a round crosses from one plant's explosion safety document into another's within a few hundred metres.
The site is best known for ethylene oxide and its derivatives, and BASF reports an expansion of that complex with an investment above 500 million euros. Ethylene oxide, non-ionic surfactants, ethanolamines, glycol ethers and polyether polyols involve flammable gases and liquids handled under pressure and often at temperature. Exactly which zone, gas group and temperature class applies to which plant is set by the site's own zoning documents, so the sensible planning assumption for an explosion proof mobile phone here is the widest one, group IIC with a T4 target, rather than a plant-by-plant selection.
On a standalone plant the boundary is the fence. Here an operator or inspector can pass through several plants on one round, and each one has its own permit-to-work and its own hot-work rules. A single Zone 1 handset, designed for gas and Zone 21 dust, avoids the swap-at-the-door routine that is how devices get left behind.
Plants are linked by pipe racks and roads, and the control room can be a long walk or a short drive from the unit. The 4,000 mAh battery is sized for a shift with the camera and a work order application open, because there is nowhere inside a classified area to plug in.
A chemical site with Seveso status restricts cameras for good reason. A 50 MP camera is useful for recording a leaking flange or a gland, so the practical answer is a camera that your own console can switch off per area. Android Enterprise management lets the site set that centrally.
Turnarounds and construction projects bring contractor crews who must be enrolled quickly and de-enrolled when the permit ends. Managing the units from your existing MDM console, with a locked application list, makes that a routine task rather than a project.
An operator walks a route through a plant, logs readings, photographs a defect and calls the control room. The IS-04Z1 is designed so that these can be done from one handset inside the Zone 1 area.
During a planned stop, the site fills with contractor crews working to daily permits. A managed handset can carry the permit, the work list and photographs of completed work, and be returned and wiped at the end of the shift.
We cannot publish BASF's internal supplier requirements and we do not claim any relationship with BASF. What can be said in general is what a site of this kind asks of a supplier of portable electrical equipment: the notified body ATEX certificate and the marking string, the EU declaration of conformity, the temperature class and gas group for the zoning file, and the instructions in the language of the region, which in Flanders means Dutch. Belgian sites also commonly ask contractors for safety certification such as SCC or VCA, and a Seveso site is inspected jointly by federal and regional inspectors.
Ask the operator's procurement and HSE teams for current supplier requirements before any trial. Certification of the IS-04Z1 to ATEX 2014/34/EU is in progress ahead of the Q4 2026 launch.
No. The device is pre-launch, and ATEX certification is still in progress ahead of the Q4 2026 launch. No unit will be supplied for use in a classified area before the certificate covering it exists.
Because streams are shared between plants, hydrogen and light hydrocarbons can be present in more places than at a single-product site. Group IIC is the design target of the IS-04Z1, and the group, the zone and the temperature class on the certificate should be checked against the explosion safety document of each plant, not just the site as a whole.
That is the intended pattern. The handset is managed from an existing MDM console, so the application list and camera policy can be set per user group, and a contractor unit can be locked down and removed at the end of a project. Whether the site permits that is a decision for its HSE and IT teams.
Not necessarily. Each operator in the cluster has its own procurement process and its own standards, even where sites share a boundary. Documentation is prepared so that it can be read by each of them separately, and approval at one site does not transfer to another.
Tell us the site, the zone and gas group, and roughly how many handsets. The SAMS team replies by email with the datasheet and the certification schedule for Belgium. The IS-04Z1 is pre-launch and certification is in progress, so there is no list price yet; indicative pricing is issued in writing against a stated quantity and site.
Tell us the zone, gas group and operator. We will send the datasheet and the certification schedule for your market.
