Categories - Chemical Industry Note

Chemical Industry Notes is a bibliographic database, updated weekly and containing documents in the following categories ... 

Table 4. Workforce, in thousands, employed in a select group of industries. The category other chemical industry include cryolite, matches, asphalt and tar products, dyes and pigments, rubber, sulphuric acid and superphosphate. Source Topsoe (note 26), p. 33.

The description of the chemical categories above includes some specific characteristics of feedstocks, manufacturing, storage, and use for each. From these specifics it is possible and instructive to draw some generalizations about the chemical supply chain. Here that supply chain is presented as a network using a model described by the characteristics of the materials and infrastructure involved the pathways, links, and nodes between manufacturers and users and the ownership and control of the components. The model as described applies to most of the chemical industry. Exceptions to the model are noted where relevant. The main characteristics of the network follow. 

The sources, amounts, and composition of injected hazardous wastes are a matter of record, because the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)5,14 requires hazardous waste to be manifested (i.e., a record noting the generator of the waste, its composition or characteristics, and its volume must follow the waste load from its source to its ultimate disposal site). The sources and amounts of injected hazardous waste can be determined, therefore, based on these records. Table 20.2 shows the estimated volume of deep-well-injected wastes by industrial category.3 More than 11 billion gallons of hazardous waste were injected in 1983. Organic chemicals (51%) and petroleum-refining and petrochemical products (25%) accounted for three-quarters of the volume of injected wastes that... 

When classifying chemical products, Seider et al. [3] identify three categories (1) basic chemicals (commodity and specialty chemicals, bio-materials, and polymeric materials) (2) industrial chemicals (films, fibers, paper,. ..) and (3) configured consumer products (dialysis devices, post-it notes, transparencies, drug delivery patches,. ..). In the manufacture of epitaxial silicon wafers, a thin film of crystalline silicon is often deposited on a polished crystalline silicon... 

Hazardous wastes from specific sources - Unless the laboratory is a pilot operation simulating an industrial process, it is unhkely that most research laboratories would fell within this category. Note however, that hazardous chemicals used in a pilot plant operation normally would not be exempt from the regulatory provisions of SARA Title HI, discussed in Section IX.B of this chapter. 

Appearance and Odon The appearance, including the physical state (solid, liquid, or gas) of a chemical at room temperature (20-25 C) is provided. If the compound can be detected by the olfactoiy sense, the odor is noted. Uidess noted otherwise, the information provided in this category is for the pure substance and was obtained from mai sources (Hawley, 1981 Verschueren, 1983 Windholz et al., 1983 CHRIS Hazardous Chemical Data, 1984 Sax, 1984 Sittig, 1985 Toxic and Hazardous Industrial Chemicals Safely Manual for Handling and Disposal with Toxicity and Hazard Data, 1986 Sax and Lewis, 1987 Hazardous Substances Data Bank, 1989). 

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