Chemical Industry

CHEMICAL INDUSTRY, general name for a number of industrial sectors, in which the basis of production processes is predominantly the chemical processing of various substances. The C.I. includes the following sectors: basic chemical industry (production of acids, alkalis and salts), military chemical, aniline-dye, varnish-paint, chemical-pharmaceutical, wood-chemical and others. All sectors of C.I. are divided into two groups: Group "A" ("heavy chemistry"), i.e., the basic means of industrial and agricultural production, and Group "B" ("light chemistry"), which combines rubber, fat, chemical-pharmaceutical, match and other industries. The C.I. of the USSR was essentially created for the first time only during the first Five-Year Plan. In terms of worker morbidity and industrial trauma, each C.I. production has its own characteristics. Analysis of industrial trauma in chemical enterprises shows that the main source of injury is usually not the chemical instruments and apparatus themselves, but auxiliary equipment. By type of work, accidents in the main C.I. of Ukraine (for 1927) are distributed as follows: when working with simple mechanisms - 33.0%, during transport (all types) - 37.1%, when servicing engines and actuators - 8.6%, when servicing chemical apparatus - 5.9%, during other work - 15.4%. There are no general professional hazards and dangers for the entire C.I. The latter are determined by both the nature of the raw materials (physical state, toxicity) and intermediate and finished products, and the nature of production equipment and technological process (work under high pressure, presence of sources of heat generation, dust formation, gas evolution, etc.). From the point of view of occupational hygiene, it is essential when designing and arranging C.I. enterprises to take into account the following points: 1) correct choice of site for construction (sufficient distance from populated areas, railway lines, etc.); 2) rational distribution of individual production and auxiliary buildings on the enterprise territory (ensuring the impossibility of gaseous waste being carried from workshop to workshop, proper distances between buildings, etc.); 3) trapping of exhaust gases, vapors and dust with subsequent removal of residual gases into the atmosphere to the greatest possible height; 4) rational design of buildings, ensuring the possibility of maximum natural ventilation; 5) correct choice of building material (fire resistance, acid resistance, etc.); 6) tightness of apparatus and communications; 7) mechanization of dangerous operations (transport and transfer of acids, etc.); 8) correct choice of production ventilation system (in particular ensuring the supply of unpolluted air, proper ratio of artificial and natural ventilation, etc.); 9) rational methods of individual protection (in particular proper organization of gas rescue work); 10) planned-preventive maintenance of equipment; 11) technical literacy of workers (in particular on issues of safety engineering and industrial sanitation); 12) proper organization of first aid. - In relation to a number of productions, Soviet labor legislation establishes mandatory periodic medical examinations of workers (see Professional diseases). Special decrees of the NKT regulate the main issues of labor protection in C.I. (decree of 10/XI 1928 on a reduced working day for certain categories of workers, of 24/II 1925 on a list of jobs to which adolescents are not admitted, of 11/VII 1932 on maximum permissible concentrations of vapors and gases in the air of work premises, of 30/VIII 1922 on safety measures in the production of sulfuric, nitric, hydrochloric acids and mineral salts, etc.). See also articles on individual chemical productions.

3. Izraels.