Productivity costs

The bonding of the HT cable to the tube reduces production costs and tube length. 

In 1987, Toray Industries, Inc., announced the development of a new process for making aromatic nitriles which reportedly halved the production cost, reduced waste treatment requirements, and reduced production time by more than two-thirds, compared with the vapor-phase process used by most producers. The process iavolves the reaction of ben2oic acid (or substituted ben2oic acid) with urea at 220—240°C ia the presence of a metallic catalyst (78). 

These processes use expensive C2 hydrocarbons as feedstocks and thus have higher overall acrylonitrile production costs compared to the propylene-based process technology. The last commercial plants using these process technologies were shut down by 1970. 

The propylene-based process developed by Sohio was able to displace all other commercial production technologies because of its substantial advantage in overall production costs, primarily due to lower raw material costs. Raw material costs less by-product credits account for about 60% of the total acrylonitrile production cost for a world-scale plant. The process has remained economically advantaged over other process technologies since the first commercial plant in 1960 because of the higher acrylonitrile yields resulting from the introduction of improved commercial catalysts. Reported per-pass conversions of propylene to acrylonitrile have increased from about 65% to over 80% (28,68—70). 

Removal of brine contaminants accounts for a significant portion of overall chlor—alkali production cost, especially for the membrane process. Moreover, part or all of the depleted brine from mercury and membrane cells must first be dechlorinated to recover the dissolved chlorine and to prevent corrosion during further processing. In a typical membrane plant, HCl is added to Hberate chlorine, then a vacuum is appHed to recover it. A reducing agent such as sodium sulfite is added to remove the final traces because chlorine would adversely react with the ion-exchange resins used later in the process. Dechlorinated brine is then resaturated with soHd salt for further use. 

Secunda discharges no process water effluents. AU. water streams produced are cleaned and reused in the plant. The methane and light hydrocarbons in the product are reformed with steam to generate synthesis gas for recycle (14). Even at this large scale, the cost of producing fuels and chemicals by the Fischer-Tropsch process is dominated by the cost of synthesis gas production. Sasol has estimated that gas production accounts for 58% of total production costs (39). 

USP grade. Estimated production cost. Majority is used to make aspartame. ... 

Because an excess of ammonia is fed to the reactor, and because the reactions ate reversible, ammonia and carbon dioxide exit the reactor along with the carbamate and urea. Several process variations have been developed to deal with the efficiency of the conversion and with serious corrosion problems. The three main types of ammonia handling ate once through, partial recycle, and total recycle. Urea plants having capacity up to 1800 t/d ate available. Most advances have dealt with reduction of energy requirements in the total recycle process. The economics of urea production ate most strongly influenced by the cost of the taw material ammonia. When the ammonia cost is representative of production cost in a new plant it can amount to more than 50% of urea cost. 

Cost Fa.ctors, The dehvered costs of the phosphate rock and sulfuric acid raw materials often account for more than 90% of the cost of producing NSP, thus the production cost varies considerably with plant location. Because the rock is richer in P2O5 than is the low analysis NSP product, NSP need not be produced near the phosphate mine. However, deUvery of sulfuric acid and shipment of product to market are important cost factors. Most United States NSP plants have been located east of the Mississippi river, with concentration in the southeastern and extreme southern parts of the country where the largest use of the product has occurred. Production and use of the product also has been high in California. 

For most of the decade prior to 1965, the United States was the world s largest single producer of potash. More than 90% of this production came from mines in New Mexico. As the grades of these deposits lowered and production costs rose, expanding production in Saskatchewan, Canada,... 

Fertiliser Investment and Production Costs, report of the World Bank to the 9th Session of the FAO Commission on Fertilizers, Rome, Feb. 1985. 

Cost Calculation. The main elements determining production cost are identical for fine chemicals and commodities (see Economic evaluation), a breakdown of production cost is given in Table 2. In multipurpose plants, where different fine chemicals occupying the equipment to different extents are produced during the year, a fair allocation of costs is a more difficult task. The allocation of the product-related costs, such as raw material and utiHties, is relatively easy. It is much more difficult to allocate for capital cost, labor, and maintenance. A simplistic approach is to define a daily rent by dividing the total yearly fixed cost of the plant by the number of production days. But that approach penalizes the simple products using only part of the equipment. 

Outside of the United States, there are six primary producers in China, France, Mexico, Morocco, South Africa, and Spain. Mines in Newfoundland, Canada, were closed in 1990. Both Mexico and South Africa have lost market share to China which has high grade, low cost fluorspar. China is expected to dominate world markets because reserves are vast and production cost is low. Table 3 (2) shows a Hst of world producers by country of fluorspar in the early 1990s. 

Fluorspar Supply. Production costs of hydrogen fluoride are heavily dependent on raw materials, particularly fluorspar, and significant changes have occurred in this area. Identified world fluorspar resources amount to approximately 400 x 10 metric tons of fluorspar (40). Of these 400 X 10 t, however, only 243 x 10 t are considered reserves and an additional 93 x 10 t is considered reserve base, ie, recoverable at higher market... 

Economic evaluations of algal production indicate that production costs vary from 0.15 to 4.00/kg of algal product, depending on type of bioreactor, culture technique, and operating conditions (51). For systems with controlled agitation and carbonation, including raceways and tubular reactors, production costs ate estimated to range from 2.00 to 4.00/kg. 

U.S. formaldehyde prices for 1966—1989 are shown in Table 4 (115). Since the cost of methanol represents over 60% of formaldehyde s production costs, the formaldehyde price normally reflects the methanol price. Also, freight is a significant cost for formaldehyde since 1—3 kg of water maybe shipped with every kg of formaldehyde. The significant price increase in the early 1970s was due to the sudden rise in hydrocarbon prices caused by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Companies (OPEC) cartel increasing oil prices. 

Table 40. Production Costs for Annual Herbaceous Plants...

Aerosol Shampoos. These shampoos constitute a very small percentage of the market. They have been available in two versions, ie, Hquid foam types and dry spray forms. The Hquid foam type, despite its convenience and appealing appearance, did not attain high general use. Factors involved in its low acceptabiHty include not only higher product cost but also serious stabiHty issues with can corrosion. 

Process Concentration, °Bh Capacity, t X 10 /yr Capital cost, X 10 Net production cost/ /kg Product cost," /kg... 

This is a sum of the production cost and return-on-investment (ROl) before taxes at 25%/yr of total capital costs. 

Another disadvantage of A1 substrates is their higher weight compared to polymer substrates, and particularly the significantly higher production costs of the disks themselves. 

DR Processes Under Development. The 1990s have seen continuous evolution of direct reduction technology. Short-term development work is focusing on direct reduction processes that can use lower cost iron oxide fines as a feed material. Use of fines can represent a 20 30/1 (20%) savings in DRI production cost compared to use of pehets or lump ore. Some examples of these processes include FASTMET, Iron Carbide, CIRCOFER, and an improved version of the EIOR process. 

In seawater—dolime and hrine—dolime processes, calcined dolomite or dolime, CaO MgO, is used as a raw material (Table 9). Dolime typically contains 58% CaO, 41% MgO, and less than 1% combined Si02, P O, and CO2 where R is a trivalent metal ion, eg, Al " or Fe " ( 4). Roughly one-half of the magnesia is provided by the magnesium salts in the seawater or brine and the other half is from dolime (75). Plant size is thus reduced using dolime and production cost is probably lower. 

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