Background and Technical Aspects of the Chemical Industry

The business niche occupied by the chemical industry is of primary importance to the developed world in its ability to provide components of all the food, clothing, transportation, accommodation, and employment enjoyed by modern man. Most material goods are either chemical in origin or have involved one or more chemicals during the course of their manufacture. In some cases the chemical interactions involved in the generation of final products are relatively simple ones. In others, for instance for the fabrication of some of the more complex petrochemicals and drugs, more complicated and lengthy procedures are involved. But by far the bulk of all modern chemical processing uses raw materials naturally occurring on or near the earth’s crust, as the raw materials for producing the commodities of interest.