Large-volume organic chemicals

Adipic acid is a very large volume organic chemical. Worldwide production in 1986 reached 1.6 x 10 t (3.5 x 10 lb) (158) and in 1989 was estimated at more than 1.9 x 10 t (Table 7). It is one of the top fifty (159) chemicals produced in the United States in terms of volume, with 1989 production estimated at 745,000 t (160). Growth rate in demand in the United States for the period 1988—1993 is estimated at 2.5% per year based on 1987—1989 (160). Table 7 provides individual capacities for U.S. manufacturers. Western European capacity is essentially equivalent to that in the United States at 800,000 t/yr. Demand is highly cycHc (161), reflecting the automotive and housing markets especially. Prices usually foUow the variabiUty in cmde oil prices. Adipic acid for nylon takes about 60% of U.S. cyclohexane production the remainder goes to caprolactam for nylon-6, export, and miscellaneous uses (162). In 1989 about 88% of U.S. adipic acid production was used in nylon-6,6 (77% fiber and 11% resin), 3% in polyurethanes, 2.5% in plasticizers, 2.7% miscellaneous, and 4.5% exported (160). 

SEPA, Guidance for the large volume organic chemical sector, IPPC, Sector Guidance Note, IPPC S4.01, Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) (2001)... 

Adipic acid is a very large-volume organic chemical. It is one of the top 50 chemicals produced in the United States in terms of volume. Demand is highly cyclic, reflecting the automotive and housing markets especially. Prices usually follow the variability in crude oil prices. Adipic acid for nylon takes about 60% of U.S. cyclohexane production the remainder goes to caprolactam for nylon-6, export, and miscellaneous uses. 

Furoic acid (furan-2-carboxylic acid, or pyromucic acid) is used as a bactericide, and the furoate esters are used as flavoring agents, as antibiotic and corticosteroid intermediates. It is obtained by the enzymatic or chemical/catalytic aerobial oxidation of furfural (2-furalaldehyde) the latter is the only unsaturated large-volume organic chemical prepared from carbohydrates today. D-Xylose and L-ara-binose, the pentoses contained in the xylan-rich portion of hemicelluloses from agricultural and forestry wastes, under the conditions used for hydrolysis undergo dehydration to furfural. 

The nature, amount and concentration of emissions are regulated by public norms and rules specific for each country. The European Commission released recommendations and example of implementation in different countries in the frame of reference documents [22] known as the best available technique (BAT). One of the most useful document deals with large-volume organic chemicals (LVOC). The following short discussion regards specifically the acrylonitrile, but the approach may be applied to other situations. 

European Commission, Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC). Best available techniques in the Large Volume Organic Chemical Industry,... 

General purification units like distillation, extraction or fractionated crystallisation are usually part of the monomer supply the most common monomers are described in the BREF Document dealing with large volume organic chemicals (LVOC). If the polymerisation unit needs a special monomer quality and the required additional purification is part of the polymer plant, it is included in this document. 

LVOC large volume organic chemicals (BREF)... 

Large Volume Organic Chemical Indrrstry LVOC... 

Phthalates in general, as well as their substitutes, became large volume workplace chemicals and further ubiquitous environmental contaminants. Their impact on organism s health was relatively intense tested through several exposure experiments ([142, 305]). However, it seems that in general they display low toxicity [305], their effects being recorded only for high dose exposure levels... 

Six sigma Six sigma is one of the more recent popular approaches to QA that is based on a tight statistical approach to the production of a product. The name arises from a desire to limit the tolerance of a product to plus or minus six standard deviations and thus have only 3.4 defects per million. (This is the fraction outside - - 4.5 standard deviations from the mean the method allows for some measurement uncertainty.) In order for the statistics to hold, the system must be in statistical control and the defects must be random and normally distributed. There is a heavy reliance on control charts and the system is built around what to do if there is evidence for nonconformity. For a nonconforming product six sigma institutes an approach with the acronym DMAIC — define, measure, analyze, improve, control. This has been implemented in some organizations, such as pharmaceutical companies, which produce large volumes of chemicals. However, strict statistical control of chemical products is not always easy, and considerations of the measurement process also needs to be taken into account. 

Another large-volume use for organ olithium compounds is in the synthesis of pharmaceutical and agricultural chemicals, eg, antibiotics (qv), antihistamines, antidepressants, anticoagulants, vasodilators, tranquiU2ers, analgesics, fungicides, and pesticides (116—119). 

Cycloahphatic amine production economics are dominated by raw material charges and process equipment capital costs. Acetone (isophorone), adiponitnle, aniline, and MDA are all large-volume specification organic intermediates bordering on commodity chemicals. They are each cost-effective precursors. 

The development of bioreactor systems for the production of large-volume chemicals (see Chapter 3) could be the basis for reconsidering the production of biomass in limited quantities for fuel uses. This would require efficient microbial organisms to catalyze fermentation, digestion, and other bioconversion processes, as well as efficient separation methods to recover fuel products from process streams. 

It is a misconception that most chemicals are manufactured in organic solvents. Most high-volume bulk chemicals are actually produced in solvent-free processes, or at least ones in which one of the reactants also acts as a solvent. Typical examples of such large-scale processes include the manufacture of benzene, methanol, MTBE, phenol and polypropylene. In addition, some heterogeneous gas-phase catalytic reactions, a class of solvent-free processes, are discussed in Chapter 4. 

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