Process material conservation

Many facilities in this industry use in-plant technology to reduce or eliminate the waste load, requiring end-of-pipe treatment and thereby improve the quality of the effluent discharge and reduce treatment costs. In-plant technology involves water reuse, process material conservation, reclamation of waste enamel, process modifications, material substitutions, improved rinse techniques, and good housekeeping practices.3-615... 

Process material conservation is practiced by the recovery, reuse, or purification of the materials used in the processes. In the nickel deposition process the nickel solution is filtered to reduce its iron content, giving a longer life to the solution. Because the bath is dumped less often, the pollutant load is reduced. 

An inordinate amount of damage, however, also results from object handling by staff, not necessarily through carelessness but rather as a result of unawareness of the mechanical weaknesses of the various materials. This is especially tme for ancient objects, where the material properties have been affected by aging processes. Preventive conservation should therefore include a vigorous training and education program for all who handle art objects. 

The conservation of energy, however, differs from that of mass in that energy can be generated (or consumed) in a chemical process. Material can change form, new molecular species can be formed by chemical reaction, but the total mass flow into a process unit must be equal to the flow out at the steady state. The same is not true of energy. The total enthalpy of the outlet streams will not equal that of the inlet streams if energy is generated or consumed in the processes such as that due to heat of reaction. 

As in any form of mediation, the result of this frequently complex process is often a compromise. The raw material may be scarcer or dearer than is desirable or, more often, the final product has to struggle to become profitable, as was the case with Buna S. In such cases, the industrial chemist may look for a more suitable raw material, as when Reppe strove to replace fermentation-based ethanol with middle oil as the feedstock for ethylene. Alternatively, he may retain the original starting material, but search for a reaction with a higher yield (the key to Buna ), or one with a more desirable outcome, such as the Reppe process, which conserved the dearly won triple bond. The Reppe process also featured the partial replacement of an expensive feedstock, since one of the costly acetylene molecules was replaced by two cheap formaldehyde molecules. It is thus clear that Reppe s work was strongly influenced by feedstock considerations. 

Many current Raman applications are in processes that involve extremely toxic materials. The chemical industry is very conservative about safety issues, and rightly so. The major concern is process material leakage. For A -around-1 probes, a perceived advantage to some industrialists is the small size of the part that penetrates the process, which can be as small as 1/16-in. With an Waround-1 probe, however, if a leak occurs, it is difficult to identify the leak until the process material starts appearing in the fiber cable or back at the analyzer through the cable jacket. 

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