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Concept
Chemical industry
Summary
The chemical industry comprises the companies that develop and produce industrial, specialty and other chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into industrial and consumer products. The plastics industry contains some overlap, as some chemical companies produce plastics as well as chemicals.
Various professionals are involved in the chemical industry including chemical engineers, chemists and lab technicians.
Although chemicals were made and used throughout history, the birth of the heavy chemical industry (production of chemicals in large quantities for a variety of uses) coincided with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.
One of the first chemicals to be produced in large amounts through industrial processes was sulfuric acid. In 1736 pharmacist Joshua Ward developed a process for its production that involved heating sulfur with saltpeter, allowing the sulfur to oxidize and combine with water. It was the first practical production of sulphuric acid on a large scale. John Roebuck and Samuel Garbett were the first to establish a large-scale factory in Prestonpans, Scotland, in 1749, which used leaden condensing chambers for the manufacture of sulfuric acid.
In the early 18th century, cloth was bleached by treating it with stale urine or sour milk and exposing it to sunlight for long periods of time, which created a severe bottleneck in production. Sulfuric acid began to be used as a more efficient agent as well as lime by the middle of the century, but it was the discovery of bleaching powder by Charles Tennant that spurred the creation of the first great chemical industrial enterprise. His powder was made by reacting chlorine with dry slaked lime and proved to be a cheap and successful product. He opened a factory in St Rollox, north of Glasgow, and production went from just 52 tons in 1799 to almost 10,000 tons just five years later.
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BASF
BASF SE (beːaːɛsˈʔɛf), an initialism and portmanteau of its original name Badische Anilin- und Sodafabrik, is a European multinational company and the largest chemical producer in the world. Its headquarters are located in Ludwigshafen, Germany. BASF comprises subsidiaries and joint ventures in more than 80 countries, operating six integrated production sites and 390 other production sites across Europe, Asia, Australia, the Americas and Africa. BASF has customers in over 190 countries and supplies products to a wide variety of industries.
Petrochemical
Petrochemicals (sometimes abbreviated as petchems) are the chemical products obtained from petroleum by refining. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as maize, palm fruit or sugar cane. The two most common petrochemical classes are olefins (including ethylene and propylene) and aromatics (including benzene, toluene and xylene isomers). Oil refineries produce olefins and aromatics by fluid catalytic cracking of petroleum fractions.
Ethylene oxide
Ethylene oxide is an organic compound with the formula . It is a cyclic ether and the simplest epoxide: a three-membered ring consisting of one oxygen atom and two carbon atoms. Ethylene oxide is a colorless and flammable gas with a faintly sweet odor. Because it is a strained ring, ethylene oxide easily participates in a number of addition reactions that result in ring-opening. Ethylene oxide is isomeric with acetaldehyde and with vinyl alcohol. Ethylene oxide is industrially produced by oxidation of ethylene in the presence of a silver catalyst.