Main environmental concerns

Two of the main environmental concerns are the atmospheric pollutants generated by ship s engines, and the possibility ol damaging oil spills from accidents and ship operations. 

Taking the manufacture of polycarbonates as an example, two manufacturing routes are shown in Scheme 3.1. In the first route phosgene is reacted with bisphenol A in dichloromethane. The main environmental concern with this process is the large-scale use of phosgene. In the second... 

The main environmental concerns faced by the industry are identified, followed by a discussion on how these might change in the future. CERs known to have been produced within the chemicals industry worldwide are analysed in depth. 

Ecotoxicology is primarily concerned with effects of chemicals on populations, communities, and ecosystems, but the trouble is that field studies are expensive and difficult to perform and can only be employed to a limited extent. In the main, environmental risk assessment of pesticides and certain other chemicals has to be... 

The main environmental issue concerned with VOCs is their ability to form low-level ozone and smog through free radical air oxidation processes. The EPA has published a list detailing a number of adverse health effects, which are now thought to originate from the presence of VOCs in the environment, including ... 

First there are the physical chemists, chemical engineers, and surface scientists, who study mainly nonpolar hydrocarbon reactions on clean and relatively clean metals and metal oxides. These have been the traditional studies formerly driven by the petroleum industry and now driven by environmental concerns. These workers typically treat the surface as a real entity composed of active sites (usually not identified, but believed in). These investigators typically, although not always, interpret mechanisms in terms of radical reactions on metals and in terms of acid-base reactions on metal oxides. 

The main requirements for a coating are that it is easy to apply (i.e., low viscosity) and dries to a non-tacky finish within a reasonable time. Originally, this equated to the solution and evaporation of the solvent. However, because of environmental concerns, formulations have tended to shift the concentration of solvents from 80% to less than 20% (known as high solids coatings). Many industrial processes use polymer powders (of approximately 40 pm diameter),... 

A substance of main environmental and health concern is mercury. Tons of mercury are released annually form Flix and Monzon mercury cell chlor-alkali plants, and there is evidence that it reaches sediments and animals downstream these plants. In fact, a substantial fraction of fish from the low Ebro River (arriving as far downstream as Xerta) contains too much Hg in their bodies to be considered apt for human consumption [8, 9]. 

Industry, in fact, has a major interest in these diesters as building blocks for nylon 6,6 and nylon 7,7 in the production of polyesters and polyamides. However, their present synthesis raises an environmental concern. For instance, the oxidation of cyclohexanone by nitric acid (for the preparation of adipic acid), accounts for more than 10% of the total yearly release of N2O, which is among the main gases responsible for the greenhouse effect. The reaction of Scheme 4.14 represents an eco-friendly alternative synthesis of a,(i)-diesters which uses green reagents and, relevantly, has a 100% atom economy. The overall process is mechanistically described as a retro-Claisen condensation. 

There are several reasons for biofuels to be considered as relevant technologies by both developing and indnstriahzed conntries. These include energy security, environmental concerns, foreign exchange savings, and socioeconomic issues, mainly related to the rural sector. 

Abstract There is a growing demand for hydrolyzable surfactants, i.e., sirnfactants that break down in a controlled way by changing the pH. Environmental concern is the main driving force behind current interest in these sirnfactants, but they are also of interest in applications where sirnfactants are needed in one stage but later undesirable at another stage of a process. This chapter summarizes the field of hydrolyzable sirnfactants with an emphasis on their more recent development. Surfactants that break down either on the acid or on the alkaline side are described. It is shown that the susceptibility to hydrolysis for many surfactants depends on whether or not the surfactant is in the form of micelles or as free unimers in solution. It is shown that whereas nonionic ester sirnfactants are more stable above the CMC (micellar retardation), cationic ester surfactants break down more readily when aggregated than when present as unimers (micellar catalysis). 

The general attitude towards surfactants that are readily hydrolyzable has changed in recent years. Environmental concern has become one of the main driving forces for the development of new surfactants and the rate of... 

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