Organic chemicals synthetic, industry growth

The tremendous number of orphaned waste sites in this country reflects the growth of the synthetic organic chemical industry (Figure 1). In 1940, approximately one billion pounds of synthetic organic chemicals were produced in the United States. By 1965, this quantity had increased nearly a hundredfold and it now exceeds 300 billion pounds a year. 

Figure 1. Historical growth of the synthetic organic chemical industry. (Reproduced from Ref. 15.)...

How much was World War I a catalyst for the growth of the U.S. synthetic organic chemicals industry The story line begs most temptingly for that counterfactual speculation what if there had been no World War I In chemistry, a catalyst is a tool to change the speed of reactions, but not necessarily the outcome I would argue that the war sped up... 

Synthetic methanol is one of the major raw materials of the organic-chemical industry. Methanol has economic stability and a stejdy growth rale ow-ing lo ihe low costs of production and diversity of applications. Nearly all Ihe methanol producers also make formaldehyde, which is... 

The vast growth of petrochemicals connected with the expansion of the industries producing plastics, synthetic fibers, synthetic rubbers, detergents and many other organic chemicals, steadily requires greater amounts of hydrocarbon raw materials each year. 

The polymers sector is the major user of petrochemical intermediates and consumes almost half the total output of organic chemicals which are produced. It covers plastics, synthetic fibres, rubbers, elastomers and adhesives, and it was the tremendous demand for these new materials with their special, and often novel, properties which brought about the explosive growth of the organic chemicals industry between 1950 and 1970. 

The major industrial developments in organic chemicals initiated in the 1930-1940 period have continued since that time. Most important of all is the introduction of purely synthetic polymers. Table 4.1 shows the growth in importance of these materials over the period 1950 to 1988. Although much of this growth was due to the increased demand for the polymers introduced in the 1930s and 1940s—urea-formaldehyde resins, nylon, polyethylene (low-density), poly(vinyl chloride), and butadiene co-polymers—new polymers... 

Dow relied heavily on the Swiss relationship to profit from his firm s dyes— the German chemicals, but he saw much greater growth in the products directed to the pharmaceuticals and burgeoning plastics markets, two cornerstones to the expansion of the American industry. Dow s second major synthetic organic product among the German chemicals was phenol. One use for Dow s phenol was the firm s own production of salicylic acid, the intermediate used in the manufacture of aspirin. The low cost of its phenol helped the Dow Company compete in the salicylic acid market, and... 

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