TDI oniste incineration arrangements

[PB500]

I made up my opinion that TDI manufacturing is basically one of the most complex processes in the organic base chemistry.
Moreover, as I carry out a study on termal oxidation of chemical process scraps for the IT3 conference, I realised the impressive number of ventgases enclosures and routing to flares, incineration and thermal/catalytic oxidation requested in the various reaction phases: toluene and TDI nitration/phosgenation, offgases from storage tanks and loading equipment, plus ISOPROPYLAMINE byproduct (when non-reusable in proxy markets), solid distillation bottoms from the TDI distillation column and organic condensate slurry from TDA phosgenation stage.
My questions to You are:
1) does technical and environmental complexity account for the relatively scarce number of plants (e.g. here in Italy there is only one factory operated by DOW)? Or do you sense there is also a "soft" factor, e.g. growing downstream competition for poliurethanes foams in the reference application markets?
2) all of these waste streams are made of hazardous reaction residues. While raw toluene is easily handled into various piping equipment materials, even plain carbon steel, are there higher standards for the effluents of TDI manufacture, e.g. titanium? Again, do You feel this greater equipment materials complexity, if any, add to investment costs?
Thanks people

 

[PB500]

I wrote "oniste" I meant "onsite", that is captive or inside battery limits, sorry.

 

[westcoastr]

PB500,

you ask why there are so FEW plants, yet we just shut down TWO in the US in late 2005 (Lyondell and Rubicon)..so I would say we had too MANY!

clearly MDI is taking market share from TDI and thus growth is low.

the effect of capital costs AND continuous capital investment is something that companies often overlook. they see good margins and think they can go overboard on spending. of course when they end up with high debt loads and interest costs they get a wake up call...only to forget the lesson over and over...

I would look into other chemistries if you are yound in your career..try ethanol..it is the rage these days.