Responsible Care® in Japanese Chemical Industry
and the Practice at Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Inc.
Tanaka.
Yasuo*
Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Inc. Tokyo Japan
Abstract: It has been 6 years since Japanese chemical industry
committed the implementation of Responsible Care® (RC), the
international voluntary activities by chemical companies to
protect environment, safety and health throughout the life cycle
of chemical substances. The number of the companies implementing
RC is 106 in Japan, and they are improving environment aspects
continuously through cleaner production. The environment aspects
are waste, energy consumption, emission of pollutants, etc. And
the examples of practice are improvements of process and operating
condition, adoption of high efficiency equipment and instrument,
etc.
Keywords: Responsible Care® , statistical mixer, co-generator,
regenerative thermal oxidizer.
What is RC
RC is the international voluntary activities implemented by the
chemical companies in order to protect the environment, safety and
health at all stages of chemical substance life cycle--from
development, manufacturing, distribution, use, final consumption
to disposal.
RC covers the following five considerations, environment
preservation, process safety and disaster prevention, occupational
safety and health, product stewardship and dialogue with public.
Environmental preservation includes prevention of pollutant
emission, energy saving, reduction of waste, etc. Process safety
and disaster prevention is to prevent the accident such as
explosion. Occupational safety and health is to protect safety and
health of labor. Product stewardship means faithfulness for
chemical products, and is a safety management of chemical product
throughout the life cycles. For instance, that is providing the
information relating to the properties and the handling procedures
of the chemical products to protect the safety and health of all
people handling the products and the environment. Dialogue with
the public is to announce the results of RC activities and talk
with the persons who are interested in the operation of the
company.
RC was born in Canadian Chemical Producers Association in 1985.
In 1990 Chemical Associations of US, Canada, Europe, Japan, etc.
established ICCA, International Council of Chemical Associations,
and initiated to spread RC globally. In 1992 Earth Summit was held
in Brazil, and adopted “Agenda 21” where RC was cited. In 1994
IFCS, Intergovernmental Form on Chemical Safety recognized RC. In
1995 Japan Chemical Industry Association established Japan RC
Council (hereinafter shorten to JRCC) under her organization.
In 2000 RC was developing in 45 countries, and in Japan 106
companies committed the implementation of RC.
RC in Japanese Chemical Industry
JRCC promotes RC in Japanese chemical industry, and the role of
JRCC is as follows.
-
JRCC reports on the results of RC activities from member
companies by publishing the JRCC annual report.
-
JRCC supports the member companies to improve their activities
through the meetings where members can exchange the information
and experiences related to RC.
-
JRCC promotes dialogue with the public and local communities.
-
JRCC cooperates with ICCA in the international RC and, in
particular, encourages the implementation of RC in Asia.
The examples of the target items by member companies in JRCC
are, To reduce the waste volume of the final disposal at landfill.
-
To save the energy consumption.
-
To reduce the emission volume of pollutant chemicals.
-
To improve the frequency and the severity rate of the lost time
occupational injury.
-
To improve the preparation rate of MSDS (material safety data
sheet).
-
The examples of the practice by member companies are,
-
Improvement of the process, such as changing the catalyst,
switching the method, etc.
-
Improvement of the operation conditions, such as temperature,
pressure and flow rate.
-
Adoption of the high efficiency equipment, such as
co-generator, high efficiency motor and lighting instrument, etc.
-
Energy recovery, such as combustion of wastes, regenerative
thermal oxidization , etc.
Overview of DIC
Dainippon Ink and Chemicals, Inc. ( DIC ) has
four business segments,
Graphic arts business segment is the core and starting-up
business of DIC including printing ink, pigments, etc.
Polymer and related product business segment consists of
synthetic resins, such as alkyd, phenol, polyester, polystyrene,
plastic film, etc.
Specialty plastics and compounds business segment is colorants,
plastic pallets, etc.
Other business segment is building materials, agricultural
chemicals, health foods, etc.
And the annual net sales are 413 billion yen in domestic, and
37% graphic arts, 35% polymer and related products, 14% specialty
plastics and compounds, and 14% other. Number of employee is 5,461 and number of plant is 16 in
domestic.
RC annual report of DIC
Fig.1. shows energy unit consumption, emission of chemicals and
waste to landfill in DIC, abstracted from RC annual report of DIC.
RC Practice at DIC
Polystyrene production facility The first practice is
polystyrene production facility. It consists of the tower reactor
with the statistical mixing device.
The characteristics of this facility are,
-
Easy to get high molecular weight, because the flow in tower is
like the plug.
-
The cooling surface area is 5 times as large as kettle, old
process. Therefore, there is no fear of explosion.
-
The energy consumption is 27% of the old process, since it is
not necessary to melt the bead resin for pelletizing.
-
The waste is 38% of the old process, since we reuse the liquid
waste as fuel.
Co-generator The second practice is co-generator using natural
gas. The capacity of electric power is from 4,000 to 6,000 kw, and
the steam is between 2 and 9 ton /h. The overall heat efficiency
is from 50 to 80%, and it depends on the steam generation.
Of course, we can get the maximum efficiency in case of the
maximum steam demand, and annual energy saving is 2,000 kl of fuel
equivalent to heavy oil.
This co-generator is flexible for the demand of power and
steam, which fluctuate often in our plant DIC because of many
batch operations.
Regenerative thermal oxidizer for exhaust gas The third
practice is exhaust gas combustion facility by the regenerative
thermal oxidation. The capacity of the facility is 133 m3 / min of
exhaust gas, which contains MEK, acetone, toluene, acrylates, etc.
The applied solvent concentration is 980ppm on average and up to
4,200ppm. And the energy consumption is 70% better than the direct
combustion.
The inside of this facility is separated into 3 zones. For
instance, the element of the first zone absorbs the heat from
combustion gas, the element of the second zone discharges the heat
to preheat the exhaust gas form process, and the third zone is
purged by treated gas for cleaning the element. This cycle is
repeated in turn.
Conclusion
Here, I introduced the some aspects of RC activities
in Japanese chemical industry. It has been six years since
Japanese chemical companies committed the implementation of RC. It
was easy to follow the regulation, while, at the beginning, was
difficult to keep the action plan set voluntarily. Now there are
many companies targeting zero emission.
Japanese Chemical Industry Association decided to reduce the
waste of landfill disposal to 20% of 1990 level. DIC sets the
challenging goal to reduce it to 3% of 1990 level.
Japanese chemical industry promotes RC, and improves the
performance of RC by developing “ Cleaner Chemistry”.
References:
1. Responsible Care Report 2000 (Japan Responsible Care
Council)
2. Responsible Care Report 2000 (Dainippon Ink & Chemicals,
Inc.)
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