write-a-short-on-chemical-industry
Answers
The chemical industry comprises the companies that produce industrial chemicals. Central to the modern world economy, it converts raw materials (oil, natural gas, air, water, metals, and minerals) into more than 70,000 different products.
The plastics industry contains some overlap, as most chemical companies produce plastic as well as other chemicals.
The products of the chemical industry can be divided into three categories:
1 Basic chemicals
2 Speciality chemicals
3 Consumer chemicals
Several other categorisations are used but this one is simple and helpful in the context of this web site. Outputs range widely, with basic chemicals produced in huge quantities (millions of tonnes) and some speciality chemicals produced in modest kilogramme quantities but with very high value. As explained in the unit on Chemical Reactors, the choice of reactor is often goverened by the amount of chemical that is to be produced.