Plants DuPont

Soon after production began, TEL was held responsible for a high incidence of illness and deaths among production workers at both the DuPont and Jersey Standard plants. The substance penetrated the skin to cause lead poisoning. Starting in late 1924, there were forty-five cases of lead poisoning and four fatalities at Jersey Standard s Bayway production plant. Additional deaths occurred at the DuPont Plant and at the Dayton Laboratory. This forced the suspension of the sale of TEL ill 1925 and the first half of 1926. 

Munson, R. E., "Process Hazards Management in DuPont," Plant/Operations Progress, 4 (1985). 

Protective Process Safety Interlocks at a DuPont Plant... 

The Role of Mechanical Integrity in Chemical Process Safety 239 Testing Safety Critical Process Instruments at a DuPont Plant... 

The dangers of the new leaded gasoline came forcibly to public attention in October 1924. Five workers at the Standard Oil plant in Elizabeth died and 35 others were poisoned by tetraethyl lead. With the victims suffering hallucinations and paranoia, loony gas made front-page headlines in New York newspapers. News of deaths at DuPont and GM soon emerged, and the New York Times uncovered more than 300 previously unreported cases of lead poisoning at the DuPont plant in Deepwater.13... 

Three plants produced 50,000 pounds per month of fulminate of mercury, a major explosive used by the United States in caps, primers, and detonators the DuPont plant at Pompton Lakes, New Jersey, the Atlas plant at Tamaqua, Pennsylvania, and the Aetna plant at Kingston, New York. Obviously, the mercury content makes these three FUDS primary candidates for remediation. 

Protective process safety interlocks at a DuPont plant... 

Adiponitrile is made commercially by several different processes utilizing different feedstocks. The original process, utilizing adipic acid (qv) as a feedstock, was first commercialized by DuPont in the late 1930s and was the basis for a number of adiponitrile plants. However, the adipic acid process was abandoned by DuPont in favor of two processes based on butadiene (qv). During the 1960s, Monsanto and Asahi developed routes to adiponitrile by the electrodimerization of acrylonitrile (qv). 

A process development known as NOXSO (DuPont) (165,166) uses sodium to purify power plant combustion flue gas for removal of nitrogen oxide, NO, and sulfur, SO compounds. This technology reHes on sodium metal generated in situ via thermal reduction of sodium compound-coated media contained within a flue-gas purification device, and subsequent flue-gas component reactions with sodium. The process also includes downstream separation and regeneration of spent media for recoating and circulation back to the gas purification device. A full-scale commercial demonstration project was under constmction in 1995. 

British Columbia, and three at the U.S. Army Ordinance Works operated by the DuPont Company at Morgantown, West Virginia Cluldersburg, Alabama and Dana, Indiana. The plant at Trail used chemical exchange between hydrogen gas and steam for the initial isotope separation followed by electrolysis for final concentration. The three plants in the United States used vacuum distillation of water for the initial separation followed by electrolysis. Details of these plants and their operations may be found in the Hterature (10). 

New Mexico s San Juan Gas Plant is one of the United States newest and largest natural gas liquids recovery plant. Commissioned in November 1986, its levels of productivity are high by industry standards. Located near Bloomfield, New Mexico, just south of tlie Colorado border, the plant is jointly owned by Conoco Inc. (then a subsidiary of the DuPont Company) and Tenneco Inc., both of Houston. It is operated by Conoco and is named after its location in the San Juan basin, an area of oil, gas, and coal production. 

An alternative source of the ethyl component was ethyl bromide, a less expensive material. It was at this point that GM called upon DuPont to take over process development. DuPont was the largest U.S. chemical company at the time. It had extensive experience in the scale-up of complex chemical operations, including explosives and high-pressure synthesis. The manufacturing process was undertaken by DuPont s premier department, the Organic Chemical section. GM contracted with DuPont to build a 1,300 pound per day plant. The first commercial quantities of TEL were sold in Februai-y 1923 in the form of ethyl premium gasoline. 

Ill 1923, GM set up a special chemical division, the GM Chemical Co., to market the new additive. However, GM became dissatisfied with DuPont s progress at the plant. In order to augment its TEL supply, and to push DuPont into accelerating its pace of production, GM called upon the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later Esso/Exxon) to set up its own process independently of DuPont. In fact, Jersey Standard had obtained the rights to an ethyl chloride route to TEL. This turned out to be a far cheaper process than the bromide technology. By the niid-1920s, both DuPont and Jersey were producing TEL. 

Diagram of a Plant for Nitration of Cellulose in Mechanical Nitrators, duPont System... 

US production of NS began in 1888 under the name of Volney Powder. Improved NS stability was achieved by Hough, who operated two plants in New Jersey for the production of NS. Later (1905 to 1907) Dupont and Eastern Dynamite Corp experimented with NS expls. At about that time Trojan Powder Co became interested in NS. It soon became and stili is the largest manufacturer of NS. Numerous patents (from 1918 to 1945) have been issued to W.O. Snelling (of Trojan Powder Co) for the prepn, stabilization and use of NS (Ref 21a)... 

In 1930, DuPont launched the synthetic fiber industry with the discovery of nylon-6,6.2 In 1938, a pilot plant for nylon-6,6 production was put into operation, and in 1939, production was commenced at a large-scale plant in Seaford, Delaware. The classical method for the synthesis of nylon-6,6 involves a two-step process. In the first step, hexamethylene diamine (HMDA) is reacted with adipic acid (AA) to form a nylon salt. Polymerization of the aqueous salt solution is carried out at temperatures in the range of about 210-275°C at a steam pressure of about 1.7 MPa. When 275°C is reached, the pressure is reduced to atmospheric pressure and heating is continued to drive the reaction to completion. 

In recent months, three nylon producers (DMS, DuPont, and Honeywell) have developed closed-loop recycling processes for nylon carpet,15 thereby joining companies like BASF, Allied, and Rhodia, which have been recycling nylon on a modest level for years. DuPont is building a demonstration plant in Maitland, Ontario, which will be dedicated to the chemical recycling of nylon-6,6 and nylon-6. The newly developed ammonolysis process invented by DuPont can be used to depolymerize both nylon-6 and nylon-6,6. However, the cost of recycled nylon is estimated to exceed that of virgin nylon by ca. 25%. 

DuPont has recently announced plans to build a demonstration plant in Maitland, Ontario, to show that the quality of the recycled product is equivalent to the virgin material (64). BASF converts post-consumer carpet into caprolactam in Ontario. Rhodia has several European plants for depolymerising nylon 6. 

It is reported here that DuPont is planning to launch a pilot plant in 2000, to test a new, patented process for chemically recycling nylon 6/6 resin. Full details are given of the process, called ammonolysis. 

Hexamethylenediamine is now made by three different routes the original from adipic acid, the electrodimerization of acrylonitrile, and the addition of hydrogen cyanide to butadiene. Thus, the starting material can be cyclohexane, propylene, or butadiene. Currently, the cyclohexane-based route from adipic acid is the most costly and this process is being phased out. The butadiene route is patented by DuPont and requires hydrogen cyanide facilities. Recent new hexamethylenediamine plants, outside DuPont, are based on acrylonitrile from propylene, a readily available commodity. 

Sichere Chemie in Mikroreaktoren, Frankjurter Allgemeine Zeitung, December 1995 Plant cells as model for micro-reactor development micro-fabrication techniques DuPont s investigations DECHEMA s initiation of micro-reactor platform BASF s investigations general advantages of micro flow [238]. 

A joint venture plant is under construction by DuPont and Tate Lyle that is expected to produce PDO at a significantly lower cost than the petrochemical route. DuPont s 45 ktpa plant uses 40% less energy than petrochemical production of PDO. 

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