Chemical production network
A chemical production network is generally characterized by closed material and energy cycles in that production companies, raw materials, chemical products, energy and waste flows, logistics and infrastructure are networked with one another. If the production network includes several companies at the same location, one also speaks of a chemical park or industrial park .
advantages
The chemical production network has various general advantages in terms of sustainable production ( cleaner production ):
- Simplified logistics: A network of pipelines connects production facilities and provides fast, safe and environmentally friendly transport routes for raw materials and energy sources (instead of transport by rail or truck). Costs, effort and risk for transport, handling and storage are reduced. Due to the elimination or limitation of intermediate product storage, critical chemicals can also be processed with an acceptable risk.
- The bundling of demand enables more economical operating sizes ("economies of scale").
- Increased depth of added value: the vertical linking of production plants creates efficient value chains (from basic chemicals to intermediate products to highly refined products)
- Reduced dependence on raw materials: through backward integration, this is limited to a few key raw materials.
- Utilization of by- products : By- products / by-products from a production process can be used as raw materials in another production facility in the production network. This enables a reduction in waste, creates additional added value or a reduction in production costs (“economies of scope”).
- Merger of the production companies in an energy network: the use of the waste heat / waste energy generated in a production plant for production in a neighboring company or the caloric utilization (incineration) of non-chemically usable waste materials for process steam production enables a reduced consumption of fossil fuels and electrical energy.
Examples
BASF operates production networks at various locations in Europe, Asia and the USA. At the center of each is a steam cracker , which produces important preliminary products (ethylene, propylene, butadiene and hydrogen) for plastics, paints, solvents, pesticides, vitamins and much more.
The production network in the chemical park Bitterfeld-Wolfen (D) comprises several companies and is based on the by-products (chlorine, caustic soda and hydrogen) of a chlor-alkali electrolysis plant.
LONZA operates integrated production structures in Visp (CH) with an acetylene / ethylene cracker in the center and a network of continuously operated mono-product plants. The intermediate products that arise in the network represent raw materials for higher value products (vitamins, agrochemicals).
The Wacker Chemie recently their ketene composite expanded at its production site in Burghausen.
Individual evidence
- ^ BASF Verbund concept (online) .
- ↑ Wacker network concept (online) .
- ↑ Chemiehoch3 - Efficiency through Verbund (online) .
- ↑ Detlef Gerritzen: Economy and ecology in harmony - sustainable chemical production using the example of the Lonza production network in Visp. Section 4 (PDF; 695 kB), 7th Freiburg Symposium 2005, Sustainable Chemical Production.
- ↑ Verbund sites BASF (online) .
- ↑ BASF Steamcracker (online) .
- ^ Bitterfeld-Wolfen Chemical Park (online) .
- ↑ Detlef Gerritzen: Economy and ecology in harmony - sustainable chemical production using the example of the Lonza production network in Visp. Section 2 .
- ↑ Expansion of the Wacker Keten network (online) .