Document 2RBm52oQEkz7Dvm0rJKL7595

NEWS FEATURES . . . VCM-Exposure Standards: Too Tough Too Soon? After virtually ignoring industry's findings on cancer risk for a dec ade, the U. S. government is now. calling for zero-detectable am bient levels of vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) in plants that make or use it At hearings this week, some clashes are expected as industry tells why it thinks the timetable should be extended. Hearings begin tomorrow--June 25th--in Washington on just what level of exposure to vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) can be tolerated bv workers w ithout seriously endan gering their health. Once again, and ironically in this instance, a clash be tween government agencies and in dustry seems inevitable. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) pro poses to set a standard for employee exposure at "zero." as determined by a sampling and analytical method capable of detecting vinyl chloride in concentrations of I ppm (with an ac curacy of 0.5 ppm). OK, But . . .--VCM manufac- OEVICE measures VCM exposure by drawing air through sorbent tube. 110 turers are not basically opposed to reducing exposure levels as much as possible--for example, B. F. Good rich Chemical Co. (the U. S.'s largest vinyl chloride producer) now oper ates at levels of about 15 ppm in its polymer plant, and even lower in its monomer facility. What bothers manufacturers is having to achieve, in a telescoped time-period "no de tectable level of exposure." As a Goodrich spokesman ex plains, "The situation we're facing with vinyl chloride exposure levels is not dissimilar to the zero pollution legislation for controlling water pol lution--the final last percentage points are achievable only at enor mously high costs." The irony of this particular situ ation is that producers of vinyl chlo ride voluntarily alerted the govern ment of the chemical's involvement in several deaths from liver cancer (angiosarcoma). In fact, over 13 years ago Dow Chemical Co. reported that longterm VCM exposures of animals to 100 ppm VCM for 4'h to 6 mo. (at the equivalent of "normal working hours") resulted in slight liver dam age. At that time. Dow recom mended that exposure levels be re duced to 50 ppm, though the government's maximum allowable concentration was 500 ppm. The Dow recommendation was not ac cepted by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygien ists (ACGIH). In 1962, on the basis of work done at Yale University. ACGIH concluded that 500 ppm offered an adequate safety margin for human exposure to VCM. and published 500 ppm as the recom mended standard. That same level was also accepted by OSHA as a na tional standard in 1971. However, beginning in the mid1960s. the Manufacturing Chemists Assn, funded an investigation of the possible health dangers involved in VCM manufacture. In mid-1972, MCA established technical liaison with European researchers who were also investigating the safe-exposure limits of VCM. One decision by MCA arising from this agreement was to initiate an epidemiological study of VCM/PVC (polyvinyl chloride) workers in the U. S. And in early 1973. MCA signed a contract with Industrial Bio-Test Laboratories, Inc.. (Northbrook. 111.). In late June 1973, MCA requested a meeting with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health; this was arranged for July 17, 1973. A summary of the published toxicity data on vinyl chloride, and other pertinent information, was presented to NIOSH at that time. A physician representing the European research ers reported at the meeting on stud ies in Europe in which tumors were observed in rats at exposure levels as low as 250 ppm. Six months later, in January 1974, B. F, Goodrich Chemical Co. in formed NIOSH that the deaths of several of its employees from angio sarcoma might have been occupa tionally related. In the succeeding months, similar reports were made to NIOSH of possibly job-related liver angiosarcoma by Union Car bide Corp.. Goodyear Tire & Rub ber Co. and Firestone Plastics Co. In early April. OSHA acted and is sued an Emergency Temporary Standard that reduced exposure lev els from 500 ppm to 50 ppm. with the understanding that this new stan dard was to be in effect only until October while the whole question of VCM exposure safety levels was ex plored more closely. Timetable Too Fast?--Despite what seems to be a long history of self-investigation and concern by the vinyl chloride industry, this week's scheduled hearings in Washington are expected to spark some clashes. The industry is deeply concerned about the possible economic impact OCC 6514 JUNE 24,1974/CHEMICAL ENGINEERING Photo: A natoli J. Spin Co. NEWS FEATURES. . . of a "no detectable level" being es tablished immediately. In an effort to assess what the costs might be. the Soc. of the Plastics In dustry. which is expected to partici pate in the hearings, has hired Ar thur D. Little, Inc., the Cambridge, Mass., consulting firm, to prepare an economic impact survey. Even the unions concur that eco nomic hardships for workers could result from the proposed standard. However, as Anthony Mazzocchi, legislative director of the Oil, Chem ical and Atomic Workers Union (which represents about 1,200 VCM/PVC workers) notes, "The men at Niagara Falls [where Good year has a plant] are caught. They're in a dilemma. What's their option? Work and eat today so they can die 20 years from now?" (Goodrich says the morale of its workers is goodmen are still applying for jobs on its vinyl chloride line.) What's Being Done--Simply stated, there are two major areas of concern in a VCM plant--ambient air containing vinyl chloride- mono mer particles, and the need to peri odically enter the reactor vessels for cleaning. Research has indicated that the workers who clean the polymer ization reactors by scraping are ex posed to VCM concentrations of 600 to 1,000 ppm at hand level. One monitoring device being looked at with interest is a personal sampling pump, manufactured by Anatole J. Sipin Co. (Although areamonitoring instruments have the ad vantage of immediate detection, they may not measure exact working con ditions.) The Sipin device contin uously draws an air sample from a worker's breathing zone through a sorbent tube over an 8-hr working an April of the organic materials breathed by a worker. The personal sample pump was looked at with in terest by some Cincinnati-based NIOSH personnel at a meeting on monitoring for VCM, held in Hous ton. As for reactor cleaning, GAF Corp. has developed a system whereby a solvent, trademarked M-Pyrol (/t-methyl-2-pyrrolidone). is pumped through the heating unit and sprayed into the reactor to be cleaned. When about one-quarter full, the reactor is shut off and the 112 solvent recirculated. The heavv spray of hot solvent absorbs the vinvl chlo ride monomer and. at the same time, dissolves the PVC residue. Although PVC itself is considered an unusually inert material, residual monomer can be entrapped within the pores of the polymer. Up to now, the industry has not made it a prac tice to strip the residual monomer from the polymer. However. work is now underway to develop the re quired technology. Experts say that the residual monomer could be dropped by dilution with compound ing agents and by the mixing action during such compounding. Goodrich, for one. is already ex ploring possible approaches to re moving the residual monomer, and plans to set up a pilot operation soon.--jmn New Catalyst Lowers Polypropylene Costs Belgium's Solvay has a new cata lyst that It claims can cut up to 20% off the capital cost of a poly propylene polymerization plant. For 20 years, the U.S.'s Hercules and Italy's Montecatini have been battling over patent rights on cata lysts used to make polypropylene. But that contest may now be aca demic: Hercules has just purchased a license from Solvay. and other big polypropylene producers are likely to follow suit. What Solvay has apparently done is develop a catalyst that is 4-5 times more active than previous choices and yields a product with only 15-20 ppm of titanium catalyst residue. Thus, the expensive alcohol washing and purification steps that have been required to lower the titanium con tent below 100 ppm are not required. The Old Way--The standard poly propylene catalyst now on the mar ket uses trichlorinated titanium in the form of hexagonal or cubic crys tals. These form tiny nodules or balls that are ball milled to obtain a larger surface for exposure to the mono mer. The problem is that relatively large quantities of the catalyst often find their way into the polymer, harming the polymer's thermal and other physical characteristics. Also, the ball-milling process damages the surface of the catalyst crystals, which in turn affects the shape of the poly mer particles. Researchers have tried to river. come the titanium problem by in creasing the catalyst surface area, thus cutting down the amount of cat alyst required and thus the amount of carryover. One approach has been the use of porous nodules, but the problem has been that the percent of useless (atactic) polymer has risen from about 6% to 10%, thus negating the benefit of the increased activity. Solvay's Way--The porous nodule approach was also chosen by Solvay, but with its version the atactic waste is only 4-5%. Solvay's catalyst takes the form of tiny dense spheres that are 20-40 mi crons dia.: monomer seeps inside, breaking them into smaller frag ments that finally measure only about 60 A and are composed of 3-4 crystals each. The surface area thus achieved is up to 200 ms/g. vs. only about 4-5 mVg conventionally. To make the new catalyst, says the company, a standard trichlorinated titanium product is reduced in an organo-aluminum solution, then a complexing agent is added followed by a dose of quadrichlorated tita nium--the very product that usually leads to atactic polymer. Solvay is building an industrialscale plant to produce the new cata lyst, and is soon to start construction of a 50,000-ton/yr polypropylene plant due onstream by the end of 1975; expansion is planned up to an eventual 100,000 tons/yr. And Her cules has plans for a 100.000-ton/yr polypropylene plant in Belgium,# OCC 6515 JUNE 24,1074/CHEMICAL ENGINEERING ing. A small boiler will back up the solar equipment, but the solar designers, Bridgets and Paxton Consulting Engineers, Inc. (Albuquerque, N.M.), believe the boiler will not be needed in practice. Colorado Gov. John Vanderhoof has approved a $736,700 outlay for the beating system, including building insulation and double windows. Some controversy sdB swirls about the project economics. The architects predict a payback of 10.7 yr on the solar heating system if the price of natural gas rises by 300% between 1973 and 1990. But consulting chemical engineer O. G. Lof, of Denver, believes the economic case-study has flaws, and says the project cannot be justified on economic grounds alone. A dormant coal-to-gasoline pilot plant comes to life with a new mandate, as the U.S. Office of Coal Research (OCR) engages Fluor Engineers and Constructors to convert the former Project Gasoline pilot plant at Cresap, W. Va., into a multipurpose OCR facility for testing various liquid-fuels-from-coal processes. Consolidation Coal started up the plant in 1967 as an experimental facility to. make gasoline from coal, but it was closed down a few years later due to technical and labor problems. Some of die Project Gasoline technology lives on, however-- as part of the underpinning for Old Ben Coal Corp.'s forthcoming $73-million coalconversion demonstration venture (Chem. Eng., Dec. 24,1973, p. 18). Electron-beam irradiation treats wastewater and sewage sludge in a one-year Massa chusetts Institute of Technology feasibility program supported by a $113,700 grant from the National Science Foundation. ( High-energy electrons can kill a wide range of microorganisms, such as viruses, bacteria, molds, algae and protozoa; and electron-beam irradiation already serves to sterilize, e.g., surgical materials. The technique promises an extra benefit when treating wastewater and sludge: the breaking down of complex organic molecules to promote their oxidation. Similar studies elsewhere have employed nuclear irradiation, including gamma rays, for waste treatment Indeed, a large-scale operation already started up last year in Germany (Chem. Eng., Oct 1, 1973, p. 23). But the MTT researchers believe the electron-beam approach is safer (there is no radioactivity), and easier to tailor for treatment situations of a given throughput If the feasibility study bean fruit the next step is likely to he a 100,000-gal/d pilot unit- at a wastewater- treatment plant The latest big ammonia plant to be announced is a $7<Mnillioit, 1,200-ton/d facility that W. R. Grace & Co. will design and build near Woodward, Okta. The company believes that the plant doe onstream in mid-1977, has a reliable supply of feed stock natural gas: from Oklahoma Natural Gas, which in turn recently obtained access to the Anadarko gas basin in western Oklahoma. Nevertheless, gas supply to the plant may be subject to reduction during peak-demand winter periods. A 400,000-bbl/d oil refinery in Long Island Sound, off Connecticut? That state has a request from Pepco International, Inc., North Chelmsford, Mass., for permission to lease land in the Sound, near the mouth of the Connecticut River, that could accom modate such a large dean-fuels (naphtha and heavy fuel oil) offshore refinery. In negotiating the request, Pepco suggests that the project might pay the state $2.5 million in annual royalties (presumably in lien of taxes). As an input for its decision, Connecticut -awaits findings of a taskforce project, due completed late this year, on the implications of petroleum operations in gen eral for the economy and well-being of the state. Pepco International is elusive, and little information is in hand at presstime CHEMICAL ENGINEERING/JUNE 24, 1974 97 CHEMENTATOR . . . about the company. However, this project could shape up as the latest effort by Aristotle Onassis' Olympic Refineries to establish a refinery toehold in New Eng land, after recent environmental rebuffs in, e.g.. New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Pepco has indicated to Connecticut that Olympic might become the operating company for the venture. A plant to maka ethylene glycol without intermediate production of ethylene oxide is mak ing the capital-budget-approval rounds at Oxirane Corp.'s headquarters in Prince ton, N.J. The proposed Channelview, Tex., plant, which could be making fibergrade glycol by 1977, uses a process believed to work as follows: ethylene, oxygen and acetic acid react in the liquid phase, and the resulting ethylene glycol diacetate is hydrolyzed to the glycol, plus acetic acid for recycle. The technology is from Halcon International, co-owner of Oxirane. Initial capacity of the trans-Alaska pipeline may well be doubled, to 1.2 million bbl/d. A major participant--Arco Pipe Line, which now owns 28.08% of the joint oilcompany venture--has made that proposal to the other partners. Of the two other main participants, Exxon Pipeline (25.52%) has no commeht at presstime, but Sohio Pipeline (28.08%) says it supports the idea. The stepup, which would dovetail with U.S. petroleum-demand projections and make die system more eco nomical, could be implemented by more pumping capacity, plus presumably some additional storage at the pipeline terminus at Valdez, Alaska. Hand in hand with its proposal, Arco seeks to reduce its ownership to 21%. The difference might well be taken up by Sohio, whose involvement with Alaskan North Slope oil reserves is increasing. For a recent overview of the trans-Alaska project, with emphasis on engineering aspects, see Chem. Eng., Mar. 18, pp. 42-44. In Washington ... Vinyl chloride draws new attention as an air pollutant, apart from (bat related to) the occu pational-health hazard it poses as a suspected carcinogen. In preliminary tests, the Environmental Protection Agency recently found vary ing minute concentrations of vinyl chloride (typically less than 1 ppm) in ambient air near several vinyl and polyvinyl chloride plants. EPA believes there is no threat to public health. Even so, the agency has (1) asked monomer and polymer manu facturers for data on their vinyl emissions, and (2) urged as a matter of prudence, in light of the cancer problem,.that the manufacturers'lessen emissions as much as possible. At present, there is no federal pollution-control standard on the monomer. EPA's present focus is on the vinyl concentration in air. However, the agency has also tested effluent liquid streams, finding typical levels of 3 ppm. As for latest news on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration's con cern over worker exposure to vinyl chloride, see p. 110. Meanwhile, four new industry-sponsored studies on vinyl chloride and cancer in animals, and the implications for human exposure, are being set up by the Manufacturing Chemists Assn. Expected to cost at least $400,000, the study-projects will center upon (1) metabolism, (2) teratogenesis (monstrous animal fetuses), (3) chronic inhalation of vinyl chloride at concentrations below 50 ppm., (4) acute inhalation during massive exposure, as might be suffered by persons in the vicinity of a tankcar rupture. MCA will publicly disclose the program's findings. 98 JUNE 24, 1974/CHEMICAL ENGINEERING