Plastics as raw materials

The future for amino resins and plastics seems secure because they can provide quaHties that are not easily obtained in other ways. New developments will probably be in the areas of more highly specialized materials for treating textiles, paper, etc, and for use with other resins in the formulation of surface coatings, where a small amount of an amino resin can significantly increase the value of a more basic material. Additionally, since amino resins contain a large proportion of nitrogen, a widely abundant element, they may be in a better position to compete with other plastics as raw materials based on carbon compounds become more costly. 

Collectively, resin suppliers, distributors, and compounders are the sellers of plastics as raw materials. 

Acetate and triacetate polymers are white amorphous soHds produced in granular, flake, powder, or fibrous form. They are used as raw materials in the preparation of fibers, films, and plastics. Polymer density varies and ranges from 100 kg/m for the fibrous form to 500 kg/m for granules. Acetate polymer is shipped by trailer tmck, railroad freight car, or multiwaH bags. 

Reinforcement. PVA fiber in the form of short cut chips having a length of several millimeters to several tens of millimeters is widely used as raw material for paper and for reinforcing plastics, cement, and the like, and has been acquiring more and more significance. 

Benzoic Acid. Ben2oic acid is manufactured from toluene by oxidation in the liquid phase using air and a cobalt catalyst. Typical conditions are 308—790 kPa (30—100 psi) and 130—160°C. The cmde product is purified by distillation, crystallization, or both. Yields are generally >90 mol%, and product purity is generally >99%. Kalama Chemical Company, the largest producer, converts about half of its production to phenol, but most producers consider the most economic process for phenol to be peroxidation of cumene. Other uses of benzoic acid are for the manufacture of benzoyl chloride, of plasticizers such as butyl benzoate, and of sodium benzoate for use in preservatives. In Italy, Snia Viscosa uses benzoic acid as raw material for the production of caprolactam, and subsequendy nylon-6, by the sequence shown below. 

Poly(malic acid) is of pharmaceutical interest because its chemical derivatives may harbor both tissue-specific homing molecules and therapeutic effectors to be used for tissue (tumor) targeting in chemotherapy [2]. Because of its efficient production by fermentation, its biodegradability and nontoxicity, it is also considered as raw material in the industrial production of detergents, glues, and plastic materials. 

This book presents a precise, yet non-mathe-iiiatical introduction to plastics, their raw materials, syntheses, properties, and applications. The manufacture and properties of plastics arc discussed as a function of the molecular and supcrinolccular properties of polymers. Polymer composites and waste disposal are also treated. 

Starch-BionoUe compound is produced by kneading Bionolle as shown in Sect. 8.6.1 with certain amounts of starch and a plasticizer. All the production processes, except for the production processes for starch and plasticizer newly added as raw materials and those for starch and plasticizer for kneading neat Bionolle, are the same as in Sect. 8.6.1. Product distributions are also the same as in Sect. 8.6.1, since weight and distribution conditions are identical. However, CO2 emission to be accounted for in the disposal process is different from that in Sect. 8.6.1, since raw materials include biomass, i.e., starch. Transportation processes of starch and plasticizer to the Tatsuno Factory are also different. The data for newly added processes and for processes different from those in Sect. 8.6.1 are shown below. 

When hazardous chemicals are used as raw materials in a process for example, chlorine, a very toxic gas, is an important raw material in the manufacture of plastics, pesticides and herbicides, medical products, fabrics, and many other products. 

Carbon is something we encounter every day. Graphite, which is pure carbon, is the lead in pencils. Diamonds are carbon and so is charcoal. Some hard coals are up to 98% carbon. Carbon is also present in all living things. Forests, for example, are made almost entirely of carbon-containing compounds. Carbon and carbon compounds are widely used as raw materials in industrial products. Many plastics, detergents, foods, and medicines are made from carbon-containing compounds. 

Another fairly recent development based on synthesis gas is the oxo process, in which olefins are reacted with carbon monoxide and hydrogen to produce aldehydes and alcohols. Octyl and nonyl alcohols have been made on a commercial scale since 1948. These long-chain alcohols are used mostly as raw materials for plasticizers. 

Our long-range energy future clearly must be safe nuclear energy, which should increasingly free still remaining fossil fuels as sources for convenient transportation fuels and as raw materials for synthesis of plastics, chemicals, and other substances. Eventually, however, in the not too distant future we will need to make synthetic hydrocarbons on a large scale. 

As discussed above, hydrocarbons (oil and gas) are used primarily as fuels to generate energy and for space heating. Refined petroleum products provide gasoline, diesel fuel, heating oil, lubricating oil, waxes, and asphalt. A relatively small (4%) portion of oil is used as raw material to produce chemical products essential to our everyday life ranging from plastics to textiles to pharmaceuticals, and so on. 

The natural fibers obtained from cotton, wood, flax, hemp, and jute all are cellulose fibers and serve as raw materials for the textile and paper industries. In addition to its use as a natural fiber and in those industries that depend on wood as a construction material, cellulose is used to make cellulose acetate (for making rayon acetate yarn, photographic film, and cellulose acetate butyrate plastics), nitric acid esters (gun cotton and celluloid7), and cellulose xanthate (for making viscose rayon fibers). The process by which viscose rayon is manufactured involves converting wood pulp or cotton Iinters into cellulose xanthate by reaction with carbon disulfide and sodium hydroxide ... 

Vitrified clayware is sintered stoneware which is hardly porous and can withstand chemical and mechanical outside influences. For those reasons vitrified clayware is used for sewers, as a coating for vessels, reactor inlets, pipes, valves and pumps. Plastic clay with a relatively high content of aluminium and alkali metals and a low lime content is used as raw material... 

You saw in Chapter 6 that crude oil is made up of a complex mixture of hydrocarbon compounds. This mixture is a very important raw material in the organic chemical industry. Our world would be a very different place without these substances. Can you imagine life without the substances from oil and natural gas There would be no oil-based fuels, such as petrol and diesel, and the chemical industry, particularly the plastics industry, would also suffer since substances extracted from oil are used as raw materials for many plastics. 

Although boron trifluoride has been known for a long time as a catalyst for alkylation reactions, it did not become commercially important until larger quantities of aromatic alkylates were required by industry as raw materials for synthetic fibers, rubber, and plastics. As the petrochemical industry finds new uses for these aromatic alkylates, the use of BF3 catalyst is expected to expand greatly. Cumene, diispropylbenzene, and ethylbenzene are among the important alkylates which can be produced by this catalyst. 

In 1999, two American biochemical engineers with experience in microbial enzymology and genetics, both in the academic and the industrial world, Gerngross and Slater [62], were delighted with an executive order issued by former President Clinton. The order insisted that researchers should work toward replacing fossil resources with plant material both as raw material and fuel. Both men had a lot of experience in growing plastic in plants. This sounds like fiction, but it is not. Their dreams seemed to come true because... 

To avoid any misunderstanding in the definition of a monomer, the substances that are used directly in the synthesis of plastics are designated here as starting materials. These starting materials can be real monomers, e.g. ethylene, or a mixture of intermediates, e.g. siloxanes. Whereas it is assumed that residual starting materials will remain in the finished plastic, the raw materials of the starting materials are assumed to be completely converted, i.e. decomposed, so that they are not detectable. 

Linear primary alcohols and alpha olefins in the C6-C 8 range have enjoyed remarkable growth in the last three decades. As esters, the C6—C,0 alcohols are used for plasticizing PVC. In the C 2-C]g range, the alcohols are used to make readily biodegradable surfactants of various types such as ethoxylates (nonionic), alcohol sulfates, and sulfates of ethoxylates (anionic). Alpha olefins are used as polyethylene comonomer (33%) and as raw materials for detergent alcohols (22%), oxo alcohols (10%), and lubricants and lube oil additives (18%). 

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