Chemistry Sectors: Petrochemistry
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The advances of chemistry depend entirely on its basic building blocks – products such as ethylene, propylene, butadiene and benzene, the basic petrochemicals obtained from crude oil or natural gas. Petrochemistry has an essential role in offering future generations a more sustainable world, through developing new technologies, new materials and new solutions to age-old world problems. This translates in all aspects of our lives: computer chips, safer cars, cell phones, cancer-fighting drugs, modern windmills would not exist without the input of petrochemistry.
However, all this is little known. Petrochemicals are first sold to customer industries, undergo several transformations, and then go into products that seem to bear no relation to the initial raw material. As a result, most of us find it difficult to make the connection between petrochemistry and heart pacemakers, CDs, bicycle helmets, running shoes, modern furniture or computers – although we all benefit daily from end products that have been made thanks to the input of the petrochemical industry.
Because petrochemistry underpins a host of other, essential industries, it is called an enabling industry. It is indeed an enabling force behind innovation in numerous industries, such as healthcare, telecommunications, construction and transport. As such, petrochemistry is central to the pursuit of a sustainable society.
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Want to know more? Visit www.petrochemistry.net or, to find out about a specific petrochemical sector, click directly on one of the following links:
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