Topic 3 Chemical Industry PDF

Topic 3 Chemical Industry AECH 1103 Industrial Process Overview  Overview of Chemical industry Chemical industry is one of the oldest industries and playing an important role in the social, cultural and economic growth of a nation and in providing basic needs of humankind...

Topic 3 Chemical Industry AECH 1103 Industrial Process Overview  Overview of Chemical industry Chemical industry is one of the oldest industries and playing an important role in the social, cultural and economic growth of a nation and in providing basic needs of humankind - food, shelter and clothing have become an indispensable part of our life. 2  The Top Ten Chemical Companies (with amount of chemical sales in USD) Alexander H. Tullo, C&EN staff, C&EN’s Global Top 50 – The world’s chemical industry has recovered from the COVID-19 pandemic and is now riding the wave of higher prices, C&EN July 25, 2022. 3  Organic and Inorganic Chemicals Chemicals are all chemical compounds produced by chemical processes in the lab or industrially. They can be pure substances or mixtures of substances. Chemicals are divided into organic and inorganic chemicals. Organic chemistry covers practically all the carbon-containing compounds, while inorganic chemistry (inorganic matter) relates to the other elements of the periodic table and their compounds. Petrochemicals are an important subsection of organic chemistry. 4 Organic Chemicals: In 1856, the English chemist William Henry Perkin was the first chemist to synthesize an organic chemical for commercial use, the aniline dye mauveine. Until then dyes had been obtained from natural sources. The development of synthetic dyes and, subsequently, of other synthetic organic chemicals in the following decades, mainly by German chemists, sparked a demand for aromatics, which were mostly obtained from coal tar, a waste product of the production of town gas from coal. Examples: Hydrocarbons Oxygen and hydroxy compounds (alcohols, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, ketones) Nitrogen compounds (amines, amides, nitro compounds, nitriles) Sulfur compounds (alkanethiolates, sulfates) Phosphorus compounds (phosphates, phosphines) Organometallic compounds (ferrocene) 5 Inorganic Chemicals: Sulfuric acid and sodium carbonate were among the first industrial chemicals. “Oil of vitriol”, as the former was known, was an essential chemical for dyers, bleachers, and alkali manufacturers. In1746, John Roebuck managed to greatly increase the scale of sulfuric acid manufacture by replacing the relatively expensive and small glass vessels used with larger, less expensive chambers made of lead, the lead chamber process. Sulfuric acid is still the largest volume chemical produced. The demand for sodium carbonate in the glass, soap, and textile industries rapidly increased. This led the French Academy of Sciences, at the end of the eighteenth century, to establish a contest for the invention of a method for manufacturing inexpensive sodium carbonate (Na2CO3). It took Nicholas Leblanc five years to came up with the idea of reacting sodium chloride with sulfuric acid and then converting the sodium sulfate formed into sodium carbonate. Leblanc’s process is commonly associated with the birth of the modern chemical industry. 6 Inorganic Chemicals: Examples: Inorganic chemicals include acids and bases (the most important are sulfuric acid, hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, phosphoric acid, caustic soda and ammonia), metals, salts and minerals. Various inorganic transformations are also related to the formation of gases. Elemental carbon (graphite, diamond) and some carbon compounds such as carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, carbonic acid, and the carbides are also attributed to inorganic chemistry. 7  The Oil Era The use of crude oil (and associated natural gas) as a raw material for the manufacture of organic chemicals started in the 1930s in the United States. This so-called petrochemical industry got a further boost in World War II, when North American companies built plants for the production of aromatics for high-octane aviation fuel. The invention of the automobile shifted the demand to gasoline and diesel, which remain the primary refinery products today. Catalytic cracking of oil fractions, a process developed by Houdry in 1936, resulted in much higher gasoline yields. This process is one of the most important chemical processes ever developed. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, the world started to become aware of the environmental impact of the chemical industry and the discipline of environmental catalysis was born. The most notable example is the catalytic cleaning of car exhaust gases. The exhaust gas catalyst system is now the most common catalytic reactor in the world. In the 1980s, when technological developments slowed and international competition increased, the chem- ical industry in the developed countries entered a more mature phase. Many petrochemical processes had started to reach the limit of further improvement, so research became more focused on high-value-added chemicals. 8  The Age of Sustainability During the first decade of the twenty-first century, the concept of sustainability has become a major trend in the chemical industry. It has become clear that for chemical companies not only economic aspects (investment costs, raw material costs, etc.) are important, but also environmental issues (greenhouse gas emissions, wastes, etc.) and social matters (number of employees, number of work accidents, R&D expenses, etc.). The environmental impact of chemical production processes needs to be as small as possible; the more waste is produced the less sustainable is the production process. Hazardous waste has a larger impact on sustainability than non-hazardous waste. Currently, with fossil fuel reserves dwindling, there is a focus on the use of renewable feedstocks (biomass) and recycling of materials and products. New synthesis routes have to be developed that must be competitive from an economic viewpoint as well. These new routes must be more sustainable than existing routes and production processes. Incentives are the reduction of the amount of (hazardous) waste produced and better energy efficiency, which leads to reduced CO2 emissions. 9  Raw Materials and Energy Petrochemical share of total world oil demand. source: https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy 10  Global distribution of proved crude oil reserves, production, refinery capacity and consumption. Numbers are in thousand million barrels at the end of 2010 for the proved reserves and in thousand barrels daily in 2010 for the others (1 barrel = 0.159 m3 ≈ 0.136 metric ton). 11  Energy and Chemical Industry The chemical industry uses a lot of energy. Fuel is used in direct heaters and furnaces for heating process streams, and for the generation of steam and electricity, the most important utilities. The fuel used in process furnaces is often the same as the feedstock used for the process. For instance, in steam reforming of natural gas, natural gas is used both as feedstock and as fuel in the reformer furnace. Fuel oil, a product of crude oil distillation, which is less valuable than crude oil itself, is often used in refineries; for example, to preheat the feed to the crude oil fractionator. The steam system is the most important utility system in most chemical plants. Steam has various applications; for example, for heating process streams, as a reaction medium, and as a distillation aid. Steam is usually generated in water-tube boilers (Figure 2.8) using the most economic fuel available. Electricity can either be generated on site in steam turbines or be purchased from the local supply company. On large sites, reduction of energy costs is possible if the required electrical power is generated on site in steam turbines and the exhaust steam from the turbines used for process heating. 12  Base Chemicals The vast majority of the products from the chemical industry are manufactured from a very limited number of simple chemicals, called base chemicals. The most important organic base chemicals are the lower alkenes (ethene, propene, and butadiene), the aromatics (benzene, toluene, and xylene, also referred to as “BTX”), and methanol. Synthesis gas, a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide in varying ratio, can also be considered an organic base chemical. Sulfuric acid and ammonia are the two most important inorganic base chemicals. 13 Figure shows the world production of base chemicals in comparison with two major energy carriers, gasoline and diesel. Although base chemicals account for most of the chemical production, gasoline and diesel production individually are larger than the combined production of these base chemicals, which illustrates the huge consumption of these fuels. 14 Light alkenes production from crude oil; steam cracking of ethane and propane and dehydrogenation of butane mainly in the USA and Middle East, steam cracking of naphtha mainly in other parts of the world. Light alkenes production from natural gas; mainly in the USA and Middle East. 15 Aromatics production (Pygas = pyrolysis gasoline). Chemicals derived from synthesis gas. 16