United States and Europe

The heat of hydration is approximately —70 kj /mol (—17 kcal/mol). This process usually produces no waste streams, but if the acrylonitrile feed contains other nitrile impurities, they will be converted to the corresponding amides. Another reaction that is prone to take place is the hydrolysis of acrylamide to acryhc acid and ammonia. However, this impurity can usually be kept at very low concentrations. American Cyanamid uses a similar process ia both the United States and Europe, which provides for their own needs and for sales to the merchant market. 

The largest production of acrylamide is in Japan the United States and Europe also have large production faciUties. Some production is carried out in the Eastern Bloc countries, but details concerning quantities or processes are difficult to obtain. The principal producers in North America are The Dow Chemical Company, American Cyanamid Company, and Nalco Chemical Company (internal use) Dow sells only aqueous product and American Cyanamid sells both Hquid and sohd monomer. In Europe, Chemische Eabrik Stockhausen Cie, Ahied CoUoids, The Dow Chemical Company, and Cyanamid BV are producers Dow and American Cyanamid are the only suppHers to the merchant market, and crystalline monomer is available from American Cyanamid. Eor Japan, producers are Mitsubishi Chemical Industries, Mitsui Toatsu, and Nitto Chemical Industries Company (captive market). Crystals and solutions are available from Mitsui Toatsu and Mitsubishi, whereas only solution monomer is available from Nitto. 

AH these early inflation processes (41) were difficult to control, and after World War 11 they were neglected until the 1960s. Companies in Japan, the United States, and Europe then started to develop inflated—collapsed rayons (Eig. 5b) for speciaUty papers (42) and wet-laid nonwovens. 

Total consumption of TiF in both the United States and Europe is less than 500 kg/yr. TiF is available from Advance Research Chemicals, Inc., Aldrich, Aesar, Johnson/Matthey, Cerac, PCR, and Pfalt2 Bauer of the United States, Fluorochem of the United Kingdom, and Schuchardt of Germany. Its 1993 price varied between 300 to 400/kg. 

Other Sweeteners. Two other sweeteners, sucralose and cyclamates, are approved for use outside of the United States. Sucralose, a chlorinated derivative of sucrose which is 500—600 times as sweet as sugar, has received limited approval in Canada, and petitions for its approval are pending in the United States and Europe (71). Cyclamate sweeteners, once available in the United States, but now baimed because they caused bladder cancer in animals, are stiU available in Canada and Europe. Table 7 gives several examples of nonnutritive sweeteners that have been developed. 

Fig. 4. Capacity of plasma fractionation plants O, not-for-profit capacities , for-profit capacities in (—), the United States and (--------), Europe (—...

More than 95% of MTBE produced worldwide is used to blend with gasoline. In 1987 U.S. production of MTBE exceeded 3.8 X 10 m /yr (1 X 10 gal/yr) (82). The worldwide capacity for MTBE is increasing, especially in the United States and Europe, and has been projected to exceed production for years to come. 

Table 2. Progestins Marketed in the United States and Europe for Contraceptive and Noncontraceptive Uses...

The extent of extraction can be increased by a salting out effect. The selectivity of TBP is very poor compared with HDEHP and it is only useful for light rare-earth separation however, organic phase loadings or REO higher than 100 g/L can easily be achieved. There are a large number of TBP manufacturers in Japan, the United States, and Europe. 

Acetyl-i-carnitine (4) is marketed in Italy for dementia as of this writing it is also in Phase III clinical trials in the United States and Europe. In a double-blind, placebo-controUed clinical trial over a one-year period involving 130 patients with clinically diagnosed AD, a slower rate of deterioration in 13 of the 14 outcome measures was observed in the dmg-treated group (28). Earfler smaller scale pilot studies in demented patients had also shown some improvement of various behavioral and cognitive functions (29). 

Worldwide capacity available for production of isophthahc acid was about 270 x 10 t in 1994. About 200 x 10 t was actually produced. Amoco Chemical with plants in the United States and Europe is the principal producer, with over 60% of the production, and AGIC, an Amoco—Mitsubishi Gas Chemical joint venture in Japan, and SISAS produce the remainder. 

Work had gone on in both the United States and Europe, notably at Du Pont and ICI Ltd. in the United Kingdom, on exploring the whole series of alkylene terephthalate polymers in connection with new synthetic fibers. Poly(l,4-butylene terephthalate) (PBT) was investigated in detail, as it had very... 

Several utility-scale demonstration facilities having power outputs in the 300-MW class have been constmcted in the United States and Europe. These started accumulating operating experience in 1995 and 1996. Other IGCC plants have been constmcted, including units fueled by petroleum coke and refinery bottoms. Advanced 500-MW class IGCC plants based around the latest heavy-duty combustion turbines are expected to be priced competitively with new pulverized-coal-fined plants utilising scmbbers. 

Propanol has been manufactured by hydroformylation of ethylene (qv) (see Oxo process) followed by hydrogenation of propionaldehyde or propanal and as a by-product of vapor-phase oxidation of propane (see Hydrocarbon oxidation). Celanese operated the only commercial vapor-phase oxidation faciUty at Bishop, Texas. Since this faciUty was shut down ia 1973 (5,6), hydroformylation or 0x0 technology has been the principal process for commercial manufacture of 1-propanol ia the United States and Europe. Sasol ia South Africa makes 1-propanol by Fischer-Tropsch chemistry (7). Some attempts have been made to hydrate propylene ia an anti-Markovnikoff fashion to produce 1-propanol (8—10). However, these attempts have not been commercially successful. 

In other efforts, over 100 firms in the United States and Europe have adopted a specific stmctured work process for product/process development, called product/process and cycle time excellence (PACE). In effect, PACE makes new product and new chemical process development a business-driven. 

Sulfur shipped as a soHd frequentiy becomes contaminated with dirt and scale during shipping and handling. In areas of the world where soHd sulfur is stiU handled, molten sulfur is frequentiy filtered prior to use as an alternative to, or in combination with, hot gas purification. Since the eady 1970s, most sulfur used in the United States and Europe has been shipped and handled as a Hquid containing very low ash concentrations, typically <0.005%. Using this type of raw material, neither sulfur filtration nor hot gas purification are essential, and are rarely used. 

Approximately two-thirds of capacity are located in Japan, China, and Taiwan, with the remainder in the United States and Europe. Approximately 50,000 t of the Japanese and alarge portion of the Chinese production is captively consumed for fiber production. The principal PVA producers in the world (capacity >30,000 t/yr) are shown in Table 5. 

Even rain is not pure water. Reports from the U.S. Geological Survey show that it contains 2.3—4.6 ppm of soflds, or a yearly precipitation of 2.5—5 t/km. Recently (ca 1997), work conducted ia the United States and Europe has underscored the rather dangerous results of iacreased use of fossil fuels, where the SO and NO emissions that end up ia the rain lower its pH from 5.6 (slightly acidic) for uncontaminated rain, to acid rains. Such acid rain has serious effects on surface waters (1). About 40 x 10 t of SO and 25 x 10 t of NO were emitted ia the United States ia 1980. There are, however, encouragiag trends the 1970 Clean Air Act has led to a gradual reduction ia these emissions, bringing the SO emissions down from the previous levels cited by 10% by 1990, and the NO emissions down by 6%, with a consequent slight decrease ia rain acidity. A part of the Clean Air Act is also iatended to cap SO emissions from major poiat sources at 13.5 x 10 t (2). Between 1994 and 1995, total SO emissions ia the U.S. decreased remarkably by 13% and total NO emissions by 8%. 

The colorant is prepared by leaching the annatto seeds with an extractant prepared from one or more approved, food-grade materials taken from a hst that includes various solvents, edible vegetable oils and fats, and alkaline aqueous and alcohoHc solutions (46,47). Depending on the use intended, the alkaline extracts are often treated with food-grade acids to precipitate the annatto pigments, which ia turn may or may not be further purified by recrystallization from an approved solvent. Annatto extract is one of the oldest known dyes, used siace antiquity for the coloring of food, textiles, and cosmetics. It has been used ia the United States and Europe for over 100 years as a color additive for butter and cheese (48—50). 

Hydrocarbon Resins. Dicyclopentadiene is widely used in both cmde and purified form as a monomer in hydrocarbon resin production (see Hydrocarbon resins). These resins, produced in both the United States and Europe, are polymerized from concentrated DCPD streams or from the previously mentioned resin oils. The DCPD-containing stream may be polymerized with Friedel-Crafts (qv) (53) catalysts either alone or in admixture with the resin oil (54—55), or with aUphatic olefins and diolefins (56) or by thermal polymerization (57—59). 

The Penumbra stroke system (Penumbra Inc., San Leandro, CA) includes two different revascularization options (1) thrombus debulking and aspiration may be achieved by a reperfusion catheter that aspirates the clot while a separator device fragments it, and (2) direct thrombus extraction may be performed by a ring retriever while a balloon guide catheter is used to temporarily arrest flow. This system has been tested in a pilot trial in Europe. Twenty patients (mean NIHSS 21) with a total of 21 vessel occlusions (7 ICA, 5 MCA, and 9 Basilar) were treated up to 8 hours after symptom onset. Recanalization prior to lA lysis was achieved in all cases (48% TIMI 2 52% TIMI 3). Seven patients were also treated with lA UK or rt-PA. Good outcome at 30 days (defined as mRS < 2 or NIHSS 4-point improvement) was demonstrated in 42%. The mortality rate was 45%, but there were no device-related deaths. There was one asymptomatic SAH and three symptomatic ICHs. A prospective, single-arm, multicenter trial is being conducted in the United States and Europe currently. 

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