- What is the chemical industry?
- Branches of the chemical industry
- Importance of the chemical industry
- Chemical industry in Mexico
We explain what the chemical industry is, its branches, types and main raw materials. Also, the chemical industry in Mexico.
What is the chemical industry?
The chemical industry is the set of activities of an economic nature that focus on obtaining and transforming materials and compounds, applying natural procedures for this. chemistry.
It includes both obtaining the raw material to feed others industries (chemical or not), such as the processing of chemical components to obtain compounds certain useful. Therefore, it is an industry both of the first sector as from 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 he human being has created to manipulate the matter at the molecular level. Depending on the destination of these materials, we can distinguish between two types of chemical industry, which are:
- Basic chemical industry. They make basic raw materials and products intermediates that serve as inputs to other industries.
- Chemical transformation industry. They make products of consumption direct by the public, like fine chemistry.
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 is not part, for example.
Broadly speaking, the chemical industry is the one that uses as raw material the Water, salt, sulfur, fossil elements (Petroleum, Coal, natural gas) and limestone.
Branches of the chemical industry
The chemical industry can be subdivided into a set of branches, which differ in their object of production, such as:
- Basic chemical industry. Seeks to get chemical elements Y substances in its 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. Face the chemical elements from a perspective biochemistry and medical, to thus manufacture medicines for human and animal consumption.
- Fertilizer industry. Supplies materials to the farming mainly.
- Industry solvents. To make solvents, cleaners, detergents, etc.
- Industry pesticides. It produces toxic substances to combat pests and agricultural pests, or insecticides and other substances for domestic use.
- Industry plastics. It deals with the production of different plastic materials from chains of polymer.
Importance of the chemical industry
The chemical industry provides new materials for other industries.
The chemical industry is one of the most powerful and important in the contemporary world. Its complexity and vastness reflects the domain that human beings have learned to have over matter and its fundamental laws.
Thus, transforming one compound into another or decomposing it into its compositional elements, the chemical industry is capable of supplying materials never even suspected before, or synthetic materials, which do not exist in any corner of nature.
As if that were not enough, the chemical industry in the world feeds 6.1% of the Commerce global.
Chemical industry in Mexico
The Mexican chemical industry is one of the most important in America: ranked fourth in market value in 2014, for example, and in 2015 ranked third among manufactures of the Mexican GDP (10.7% only surpassed by the food industry with its 20.8% and the manufacture of transport 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 Economic Cooperation Agreement (TPP). It mainly produces plastics (such as ethylene terephthalate), terephthalic acid salts, hydrofluoric acid, monoammonium phosphate and other cleaning preparations.