Industrial use of chemicals

A key question here is whether the actual conditions of use will be those that are specified in the exposure scenario. For industrial uses of chemicals, where people have access to safety data sheets and are governed by health and safety and pollution control legislation, there is some hope that people will use the chemical in the way that the exposure scenario envisages. Even here, however, there are bound to be departures from the exposure scenario conditions people will not always wear protective equipment, or follow instructions, and accidents are bound to happen. Consumers, on the other hand, will usually not even know what chemicals a product contains, let alone have access to the details of the exposure scenario. Even if they had, there is no way that their following it and acting in the way it envisages could be enforced. There are therefore major uncertainties as to whether the exposure estimates derived from the exposure scenarios really represent the actual exposure of people and the environment to a chemical. 

Plutonium has assumed the position of dominant importance among the trasuranium elements because of its successful use as an explosive ingredient in nuclear weapons and the place which it holds as a key material in the development of industrial use of nuclear power. One kilogram is equivalent to about 22 million kilowatt hours of heat energy. The complete detonation of a kilogram of plutonium produces an explosion equal to about 20,000 tons of chemical explosive. 

The flotation process is based on the exploitation of wettabiUty differences of particles to be separated. Differences of wettabiUty among soHd (mineral) particles can be natural, or can be induced by the use of chemical adsorbates. Because the largest segment of industrial appHcations is conducted in water, with air, the following discussion is confined mainly to these fluids. 

Vessel heads can be made from explosion-bonded clads, either by conventional cold- or by hot-forming techniques. The latter involves thermal exposure and is equivalent in effect to a heat treatment. The backing metal properties, bond continuity, and bond strength are guaranteed to the same specifications as the composite from which the head is formed. AppHcations such as chemical-process vessels and transition joints represent approximately 90% of the industrial use of explosion cladding. 

Ethoxylation of alkyl amine ethoxylates is an economical route to obtain the variety of properties required by numerous and sometimes smaH-volume industrial uses of cationic surfactants. Commercial amine ethoxylates shown in Tables 27 and 28 are derived from linear alkyl amines, ahphatic /-alkyl amines, and rosin (dehydroabietyl) amines. Despite the variety of chemical stmctures, the amine ethoxylates tend to have similar properties. In general, they are yellow or amber Hquids or yellowish low melting soHds. Specific gravity at room temperature ranges from 0.9 to 1.15, and they are soluble in acidic media. Higher ethoxylation promotes solubiUty in neutral and alkaline media. The lower ethoxylates form insoluble salts with fatty acids and other anionic surfactants. Salts of higher ethoxylates are soluble, however. Oil solubiUty decreases with increasing ethylene oxide content but many ethoxylates with a fairly even hydrophilic—hydrophobic balance show appreciable oil solubiUty and are used as solutes in the oil phase. 

M.. Puller, Industrial Uses of Inorganic Tin Chemicals, ITRI Pubhcation 499, International Tin Research Institute, Middlesex, UK, 1975. 

In the early years of the chemical industry, use of biological agents centered on fermentation (qv) techniques for the production of food products, eg, vinegar (qv), cheeses (see Milk and milk products), beer (qv), and of simple organic compounds such as acetone (qv), ethanol (qv), and the butyl alcohols (qv). By the middle of the twentieth century, most simple organic chemicals were produced synthetically. Fermentation was used for food products and for more complex substances such as pharmaceuticals (qv) (see also Antibiotics). Moreover, supports were developed to immobilize enzymes for use in industrial processes such as the hydrolysis of starch (qv) (see Enzyme applications). 

Triglycerides are important constituents of resin. In softwood, the triglycerides account for 20—40% of total resin content, and in hardwood, 40—50%. The paper industry uses the term pitch for resins that create problems in paper machines. Traditionally, pitch is controlled or reduced by aging the wood, by use of chemicals to avoid deposits on the roUs, or by intensive washing of the pulp. AH these methods add to the cost of paper production. An alternative is to add a Upase to the pulp in a reaction lasting about one hour with the help of agitation. Results from Japanese paper mills show substantial... 

The commercial exploitation of our increased understanding of protein stmcture will not, of course, be restricted to the pharmaceutical industry. The industrial use of enzymes in the chemical industry, the development of new and more specific pesticides and herbicides, the modification of enzymes in order to change the composition of plant oils and plant carbohydrates are all examples of other commercial developments that depend, in part, on understanding the structure of particular proteins at high resolution. 

Hillert, M. (1980) in Conference on the Industrial Use of Thermochemical Data, ed. Barry, T. (Chemical Society, London) p. 1. 

A scientific, non-profit making, non-commercial association, financed by 50 of the leading companies with interests in the manufacture and use of chemicals. It provides a scientific fomm through which the European chemical industry can research, review, assess and publish studies on the ecotoxicoiogy and toxicology of chemicals. 

Accidents due to naturally occurring conditions resulting from the structure of tlie land or from tlie ravages of weatlier were reviewed briefly in Cluipter 5. Outdoor processing, coninion in industries using hazardous chemicals, increases... 

C. J. Evans and S. Karpel. Orgcnotin Compounds in Modem Technology. Journal of Organomelallic Chemistry Libraty, 16 Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1985, 280 pp. S. J. Blunden. P. a. Cusack and R. Hiu., The Industrial Uses of Tin Chemicals. Royal Society of Chemistry, London, 1985, 346 pp. K. Das, S. W. Ng and M. Gielen, Chemistry and Technology Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1992, 608 pp. 

It is common practice to refer to the molecular species HX and also the pure (anhydrous) compounds as hydrogen halides, and to call their aqueous solutions hydrohalic acids. Both the anhydrous compounds and their aqueous solutions will be considered in this section. HCl and hydrochloric acid are major industrial chemicals and there is also a substantial production of HF and hydrofluoric acid. HBr and hydrobromic acid are made on a much smaller scale and there seems to be little industrial demand for HI and hydriodic acid. It will be convenient to discuss first the preparation and industrial uses of the compounds and then to consider their molecular and bulk physical properties. The chemical reactivity of the anhydrous compounds and their acidic aqueous solutions will then be reviewed, and the section concludes with a discussion of the anhydrous compounds as nonaqueous solvents. 

Industrial use of HCl gas for the manufacture of inorganic chemicals includes the preparation of anhydrous NH4CI by direct reaction with NH3 and the synthesis of anhydrous metal chlorides by reaction with appropriate carbides, nitrides, oxides or even the free metals themselves, e,g, ... 

Bioprocess plants are an essential part of food, fine chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Use of microorganisms to transform biological materials for production of fermented foods, cheese and chemicals has its antiquity. Bioprocesses have been developed for an enoimous range of commercial products, as listed in Table 1.1. Most of the products originate from relatively cheap raw materials. Production of industrial alcohols and organic solvents is mostly originated from cheap feed stocks. The more expensive and special bioprocesses are in the production of antibiotics, monoclonal antibodies and vaccines. Industrial enzymes and living cells such as baker s yeast and brewer s yeast are also commercial products obtained from bioprocess plants. 

As Table 21-1 suggests, molecular chlorine is a tremendously versatile industrial chemical. This element is a leading industrial chemical because of this versatility rather than any single application, although polymers account for about one third of its uses. In recent years, however, the industrial use of chlorine has come under strong attack from many environmentally conscious groups. One major reason is that dioxins, one class of by-products of chlorine reactions, have a very detrimental effect on biosystems. The controversy over industrial chlorine is described in our Chemistry and the Environment Box on page 936. 

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