We explain what the chemical industry is, its branches, types and main raw materials. Additionally, the chemical industry in Mexico.
What is the chemical industry?
The chemical industry is the set of economic activities that focus on the obtaining and transformation of materials and compounds, applying chemical procedures.
It includes both the obtaining of raw materials to feed other industries (chemical or not), as well as the processing of chemical components to obtain specific useful compounds. Therefore, It is an industry of both the first sector and the second sector of the productive chain.
In other words, the chemical industry uses materials of animal or mineral origin as a source of chemicals, for their extraction and potential recombination, using the technologies that humans have created to manipulate matter at the molecular level. Depending on the destination of said materials, we can distinguish between two types of chemical industry, which are:
- Basic chemical industry They produce basic raw materials and intermediate products that serve as input to other industries.
- Chemical transformation industry They produce products for direct consumption by the public, such as fine chemicals.
However, it should be noted that the definition of “chemistry” in this case is more conventional than logical, since it does not clarify what is meant by “chemicals.” All matter can be called that, but traditionally only certain elements are understood as part of the chemical industry, of which metallurgy, for example, is not a part.
Broadly speaking, the chemical industry is the one that uses water, salt, sulfur, fossil elements as raw materials (oil, coal, natural gas) and the limestone.
See also: Heavy industry
Branches of the chemical industry
The chemical industry can be subdivided into a set of branches, which differ in their production objective, such as:
- Basic chemical industry It seeks to obtain chemical elements and substances in their purest possible state: hydrogen, sulfur, mercury, etc.
- Petrochemical industry Concerned not with the extraction of oil, but with its transformation into other materials and the obtaining of refined substances, such as gasoline, diesel, benzene, etc.
- Pharmaceutical industry It approaches chemical elements from a biochemical and medical perspective, to manufacture medicines for human and animal consumption.
- Fertilizer industry It supplies materials to agriculture mostly.
- Solvent industry To manufacture solvents, cleaners, detergents, etc.
- Pesticide industry It produces toxic substances to combat pests and agricultural pests, or insecticides and other substances for domestic use.
- Plastics industry It deals with the production of different plastic materials from polymer chains.
Importance of the chemical industry
The chemical industry It is one of the most powerful and important in the world contemporary. Its complexity and vastness reflects the mastery that human beings have learned to have over matter and its fundamental laws.
Thus, transforming one compound into another or breaking it down into its compositional elements, the chemical industry is capable of supplying materials never before suspected even, or synthetic materials, which do not exist anywhere in nature.
As if that were not enough, the chemical industry in the world fuels 6.1% of global trade.
Chemical industry in Mexico
The Mexican chemical industry is one of the most important in America: it ranked fourth in market value in 2014, for example, and In 2015 it ranked third among manufacturing in the Mexican GDP (10.7% only surpassed by the food industry with its 20.8% and the manufacturing of transportation equipment with its 19.1%).
Its products have a wide demand in neighboring countries such as the United States, Chile and other countries of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). It mainly produces plastics (such as ethylene terephthalate), terephthalic acid salts, hydrofluoric acid, monoammonium phosphate and other preparations intended for cleaning.
Continue with: Light industry
References
- “Chemical industry” in Wikipedia.
- “The chemical industry” at the Technological University of Pereira (Colombia).
- “Chemical industry. Macroeconomic situation” in the Single Portal of the Mexican Government.
- “Chemical Industry” in The Encyclopaedia Britannica.
