Chemical explosives markets

The Institution of Chemical Engineers markets Ha/ards Workshop 005, which is entitled Furnace Fires and Explosions. [1] One of the advertising leaflets for this workshop makes the following generalization Furnaces are comparatively simple items for a plant, and because they are unsophisticated they tend to be imperfecdy understood by operators and plant managers alike. Their tolerance to abuse is limited, and once abused their useful life can be drastically shortened. Worse still they may fail suddenly, since furnace tubes distort easily and then fracture. Such failure is often severe, with a consequential fire and/or explosion. ... 

The Institution of Chemical Engineers markets "Hazards Workshop 005, which is entitled Furnace Fires and Explosions. [1] One of the advertising leaflets for this workshop makes the following generalization ... 

However, during the same time period, ICI acquired a new ammonium nitrate plant in Australia, which will incorporate the latest technology and provide extra capacity in their explosives market. Similarly, they have recently completed a new tioxide plant in Malaysia which will become the hub of tioxide activities in Asia Pacific, thereby strengthening ICI s industrial chemicals business. 

Explosion-bonded metals are produced by several manufacturers in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The chemical industry is the principal consumer of explosion-bonded metals which are used in the constmction of clad reaction vessels and heat-exchanger tube sheets for corrosion-resistant service. The primary market segments for explosion-bonded metals are for corrosion-resistant pressure vessels, tube sheets for heat exchangers, electrical transition joints, and stmctural transition joints. Total world markets for explosion-clad metals are estimated to fluctuate between 30 x 10 to 60 x 10 annually. 

A major force behind this evolntion will be the explosion of new products and materials that will enter the market dnring the next two decades. Whether from the biotechnology industry, the electronics industry, or the high-performance materials indnstry, these products will be critically dependent on structure and design at the molecular level for their usefulness. They will require manufacturing processes that can precisely control their chemical composition and stracture. These demands will create new opportunities for chemical engineers, both in product design and in process irmovation. 

Control of exudation depends mainly on the suitable choice of the nitrocellulose used. Some lack of uniformity in this product is certainly desirable. This offers no serious difficulty, although it is necessary to ensure a constant watch on manufacturing processes to see that quality is maintained. In other gelatine explosives, particularly those containing ammonium nitrate, exudation can be induced by slow chemical reaction. The addition of alkalis, for example, can liberate ammonia which in turn can react with nitrocellulose and cause it to lose its power of binding nitroglycerine. Such effects are accelerated at high temperatures and under wet conditions and it is usual practice to test all explosives under such adverse conditions before they are put on the market. 

The current market for concentrated hydroxylamine solutions is expanding. If not for the explosion, CSI would have been the first company in the United States to manufacture this product in commercial quantities. Nissin Chemical Company was the sole global supplier of hydroxylamine up to that time. In early 1999, BASF Aktiengesellschaft started up a new production facility in Germany. Fourteen months following the CSI incident, a catastrophic explosion at the Nissin plant in Japan further decreased the availability of hydroxylamine. 

Other chemical products (SICs 284, 285, 287, and 289) consist of some 6,175 corporations whose primary business is the manufacturing and marketing of soaps and detergents surfactants specialty cleaning, polishing, and sanitary preparations perfumes, cosmetics, and other toilet preparations paints, varnishes, enamels, and other allied products fertilizers, pesticides, and other agricultural chemicals and adhesives and sealants, explosives, printing ink, and other specialty chemicals and chemical preparations. 

In 1966 fifty percent of the capital stock of IRECO Chemicals was acquired by the Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation, Ltd, a worldwide association of mining and related industrial enterprises such as ore processing, smelting, fabricating metals, and the production of chemicals. Since that time IRECO Chemicals has continued to grow and is today the world leader in the research, manufacture and marketing of slurry explosives with operations in important mining centers the world over... 

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