Chemical plants, construction planning

The history of the targeted planning of chemical plants is only about 100 years old [Kratz 1990, Sattler 2000], The construction of a complete new chemical plant was planned on the drawing board for the first time in 1898 by Duisberg. Prior to this, one simply built what one needed at the moment, and hence after a short time chemical plants developed a chaotic appearance. Today, long before a construction site is developed, concrete is poured, or steel is delivered, a plant already exists as a pile of paper or computer drives. 

Safety in chemical plants requires proper planning, construction, and operation of chemical plant and equipment. In all cases critical conditions during operation and damage caused... 

If safety characteristics like flash points, ignition temperatures or explosion limits are needed, databases like CHEM-SAFE or the DANGEROUS GOODS CD-ROM will be a good choice. CHEMSAFE contains safety characteristics recommended by Federal German authorities together with information on the methods of measurement. For proper planning of chemical plants and construction of apparatus this can be very valuable. 

Since the OELs provide the basis for ventilation requirements, an astute designer tries to find out how secure the OELs of the chemicals which will be used in the plant he or she is planning. Some of the chemicals used may totally lack OELs. Therefore, it is advisable to become familiar with the relevant literature, preferably together with a specialist. It is clear that the ventilation engineer needs to be aware of the possible significance of toxicology for industrial ventilation construction. 

Coalcon A coal gasification process using a fluidized bed operated with hydrogen. Developed by Union Carbide Corporation and the Chemical Construction Company, based on work on liquid-phase hydrogenation completed by Union Carbide in the 1950s. A 20-ton per day pilot plant was operated in the 1960s, but a planned larger demonstration plant was abandoned because of cost. 

In the discussion above, conditions described referred to perfect world conditions—that is, to those conditions that we would want (i.e., the security manager s proverbial wish list) to be incorporated into the design and installation of new chemical industry infrastructure. Post-9/11, in a not-so-perfect world, however, many of the peripheral (fence line) measures described above are more difficult to incorporate into chemical industry site infrastructure. This is not to say that industrial chemical facilities do not have fence lines or fences most of them do. These fences are designed to keep vandals, thieves, and trespassers out. The problem is that many of these facilities were constructed several years ago, before urban encroachment literally encircled the sites—allowing, at present, little room for security stand-backs or setbacks to be incorporated into plants or critical equipment locations. Based on personal observation, many of these fences face busy city streets or closely abut structures outside the fence line. The point is that when one sits down to plan a security upgrade, these factors must be taken into account. 

Other companies showing strong interest in the production of biobased succinic acid and its derivatives are Mitsubishi Chemical and Ajinomoto Company, Inc., which have agreed to collaboratively develop a biobased process to convert sugars into succinic acid. These companies plan to construct a succinic acid plant in Japan with an initial capacity of 30,000 metric t/yr (MT) by 2006 (42). Table 4 shows the current market estimates for the fossil-based chemicals, as well as 2020 market estimates for the biobased products potentially based on biobased succinic acid. 

The industrial process for propene oxide manufacture is commonly referred to as the HPPO (hydrogen peroxide propene oxide) process. EniChem set up a prototype plant in 2002 [150]. BASF/Dow Chemicals and Degussa, in turn, have the construction of commercial plants already in progress or at the planning stage [151]. 

In a typical chemical process plant, the duration of the construction phase is approximately 80% of the total project duration from the start of engineering (after completion of Phase 1) to the mechanical completion of the construction work. The remaining 20% is the lead time required for engineering and procurement activities before construction can start in a cost-effective manner. It must be noted, for initial planning purposes, that the lead time allowed should not be less than three months. Historically, the engineering hours spent during this period are normally between 30 and 40% of the project total. 

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