Large Chemical Plants

Medical Programs. Large chemical plants have at least one hill-time physician who is at the plant five days a week and on call at all other times. Smaller plants either have part-time physicians or take injured employees to a nearby hospital or clinic by arrangement with the company compensation-insurance carrier. When part-time physicians or outside medical services are used, there is Httle opportunity for medical personnel to become familiar with plant operations or to assist in improving the health aspects of plant work. Therefore, it is essential that chemical-ha2ards manuals and procedures, which highlight symptoms and methods of treatment, be developed. A hill-time industrial physician should devote a substantial amount of time to becoming familiar with the plant, its processes, and the materials employed. Such education enables the physician to be better prepared to treat injuries and illnesses and to advise on preventive measures. 

The processing units of most large chemical plants today are not located inside buildings. This is true as far north as Michigan. The only equipment enclosed in buildings is that which must be protected from the weather, or batch equipment that requires constant attention from operators. Much of the batch equipment used today does not fit this category. It is highly automated and does not need to be enclosed. 

Africa. In January 1954 the manuf of expls was discontinued at Repauno which thruout the years had become a large chemical plant. To supply the requirements formerly handled by Repauno, the new, ultra-modem Potomac River Works was constructed near Martinsburg, W. Virginia (Ref 6, pl7)... 

V. Pilz, W. van Herck, Proc. 3rd Int. Symp. "Large chemical plants", Antwerpen, Oct. 1976. 

Experienced process control engineers are usually responsible for the design and specification of automatic control schemes on large chemical plants. The book by Shinskey (1979) provides details of the practical... 

Gildert GR, Rock K, McGuirk T. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Large Chemical Plants 10. Advances in process technology through catalytic distillation. Antwerp, 1998 103-113. 

Laboratory investigation. New and potentially useful chemical changes are usually carried out first on a small scale in the laboratory. The discovery of such reactions or products may result from the desire to attain a preconceived objective, or it may be a by-product of experiments conducted for a totally different purpose. It is necessary then to determine by experiment the most favorable conditions (temperature, pressure, concentration, catalysis, etc.) for the occurrence of the reactions in question. All of this knowledge must be acquired by the chemist before one can consider seriously the problem of large-scale utilization. If the laboratory investigations indicate probability of success, there arises next the problem of adapting the process to a scale that renders economical the operation of a large chemical plant. 

Sewers can be long tubular reactors as well as conduits to carry troubles from place to place. They can receive all kinds of fluids. If you work in an older large chemical plant that handles a variety of chemicals, ask around about previous problems. You may learn how some combination of unlikely fluids, such as equipment cleaning chemicals mixed with one of the raw materials or scrubber effluents, has resulted in some sort of upset. 

Riekert, L., "Flow and Conversion of Energy in Chemical Processing Networks," pp. 35-44, in Proceedings of 4th Intern. Symp. on Large Chemical Plants, Antwerp, Belgian, Oct. 1979, Elsevier, Amsterdam (1979). 

The VCM case study emphasizes the complexity of designing a large chemical plant with an intricate structure due to several reactors and separation sections. 

P. O Connor and A.C. Pouwels "Realistic FCC Commercial Catalyst Testing in the Laboratory", 8th International Symposium on Large Chemical Plants, page 241, October 1992, Antwerpen, Belgium. Proceedings by Royal Flemish Society of Engineerings, G. Froment, editor. 

But somehow these basics are often forgotten or overlooked in the complex and intricate project required to develop a steady-state design for a large chemical plant and specify its control structure. Often the design job is broken up into pieces. One person wall design the reactor and its control system and someone else will design the separation... 

T. W. Nurse, 5th International Symposium Large Chemical Plants, Antwerpen 1982. 

Realistic FCC Commercial Catalyst Testing in the Laboratory Proc of 8th Int Symp on Large Chemical Plants, October 19 ... 

As a rule, point-source pollution sites are easily identified (large chemical plants, sewage treatment, military bases, etc.) and can be dealt with more or less satisfactorily by means of regulation and/or public pressure. In contrast, non-point-source pollution (homes, restaurants, dry cleaning establishments, etc.) are far more numerous, widely distributed, and therefore more difficult to identify and regulate. It is particularly important that these smaller sources of pollution adopt the desired pollution prevention attitude. Small colleges are one example of an intermediate source of pollution in which several departments and offices on campus may use, store, and dispose of pollutants quite independently of one another. 

In that industrial territory along the banks of the Rhine are a number of large chemical plants producing basic chemicals that go into aspirin, food additives, dyes, fertilizers, plastics, and fibers. A dozen of these plants have the distinction of being linked to the world s oldest hydrogen pipeline network, and one of the most extensive a 130-mile system of buried steel pipelines wrapped in bitumen and plastic that traverses cities, crosses the Rhine in two places, and transports more than 10.6 billion cubic feet of... 

E. F. Gallei and M. Schwarzmann, The BASF Process for Preparation of Technical and Food- or Medicinal-Grade White Oils by Catalytic Hydrogenation, presented at the Congress of Large Chemical Plants, Antwerpen, Holland, 1982. 

Already, large chemical plants such as petroleum refineries, ethylene plants, ammonia plants, and many others are under digital computer control. The effects have been very substantial, leading to better control and reduced operating costs. 

The largest mercury vapor level attributable to an industrial source was measured near the site of the now-closed chlor—alkali plant and downwind of a settling pond used by a large chemical plant. A company representative indicated that mercury has been detected on the ground near the chlor-alkali plant site this indeed may have been the source of the mercury vapor. However, mercury in the settling basin sediments may also be a source. If so, the 10-15 feet of water covering the sediment is clearly not an effective seal to keep the vapor in. 

Lee, W., Maziuk, J., Weekman, Jr., V. W. and Yurchak, S., "Mobil Methanol-to-Gasoline Process," Large Chemical Plants, Elsevier Scientific Publishing... 

Murphy, J. F. and Soudek, M. in Proc. Third Inti. Symp. Large Chemical Plants, p. 81, Uitg. Sprugt, Van Mantgen en De Dees b.v., Leiden (1976). 

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