Talk:Chemical plant

Conversion from the Wikipedia article
I essentially wrote

Although I did not start Wikipedia (WP) article "Chemical plant", I wrote almost all of it myself. When I first came across the article, it was just a short stub. Since I wrote practically the whole article myself just the way I wanted to, of course I think it's written about as well as it could be; otherwise I would have written it differently. In this sense, I'm biased about how it's written. I wrote it in a fairly simple way so the average non-technical guy can understand it, and yet it mentions practically all the main fundamental points I want to mention. It would be ridiculous for me to rewrite an article that I mostly consider about as well written as it could be just to make it different for Citizendium (CZ). Since I wrote it, a few people have added a few things, and these additions are mostly good edits that I agree with. Although someone else put them in here, mentioning cost studies for initial design screening, the Hazop or fault tree analysis, and briefly the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards regulation in the United States are good ideas related to a chemical plant, so I left those in here. I would rather transfer those edits over to CZ as they are. Nevertheless, I am making a few edits that introduce some differences between the WP (as of Nov. 21, 2009) and future CZ versions. Besides the WP-specific categories, foreign language links, and "See also" section taken out of the WP version for CZ, these differences are listed here:

• took out image(s) not present in CZ; replaced them with pictures I found in CZ

Two of the images (distillation towers photo and oil refinery block diagram) are the same as in WP, and the other images are different. In fact, the CZ version has more images now.

• reorganized/clarified parts of the introductory section
• moved a couple sentences from intro to a new subsection called "Location"
• mentioned stirred tank reactors in CZ version
• mentioned lagging in CZ version
• mentioned demonstration plants in CZ version
• mentioned operating procedures in CZ version
• some other minor rewording
• WP has a sentence about tank farm because there is a WP link to existing "Tank farm" article there, but this CZ does not have this sentence.
• added some references on pilot plant and demonstration plants which the WP article does not have
• I may add something about hazards at chemical plants - yet to be done
• maybe mention something about redundancy of plant components somewhere in the CZ article - yet to be done
• perhaps look for a reference to add some day (I have to find it.) - yet to be done
• I will look for some pictures already present in CZ to add - done for now
• create Definition (done) and maybe other subpages - yet to be done
• My plant engineering experience has been all in the United States, so I am [somewhat] familiar with the statutory and regulatory compliance I mentioned in the article, but I admit my knowledge and coverage in the article is not worldwide, although elsewhere in the world, things would be somewhat similar. If anybody wants to expand this coverage to provide a worldwide view, they will have their chance once I move this article into an article space.

Henry A. Padleckas 19:46, 22 November 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you have a done an excellent job

Henry, this looks good to me and you've done an excellent job of turning it into a CZ article. Just be sure, when you place it into the main article namespace, to check the the place where it is acknowledged that the article contains WP content. Also for articles such as this, in the Metadata template, I have listed the categories as Chemistry and Engineering and then listed the subgroups as Chemical Engineering (both the C and E capitalized).

In some of my articles such as Henry's Law, Boiling point, Compressibility factor, etc., I have also included Physics as a category. In some other of my articles, such Air pollution dispersion modeling, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, etc. I have also listed Envirionmental Engineering (both E and E capitalized) as a subgroup.

After you have placed your article in the main article workspace, you will note that it doesn't show up in your listed category workgroups. That is a known bug. You have to then go back to the Talk page and make a simple null edit (like adding a space at the end of a paragraph) and then save the Talk page. We call that a "Null edit to jog the article" or some such wording. The article will then show up in the listed category workgroups.

I hope I am not coaching you too much. If I am, just tell me to stop. Milton Beychok 23:55, 27 November 2009 (UTC)

Henry, I just found this note. I can help in Approval, as I'm also an Engineering and Military Editor; the latter is relevant to anti-terrorism and chemical warfare, where I do have some experience. Otherwise, I do know a decent amount about process control under my Computers hat. Let me read the article and see if I have comments.Howard C. Berkowitz 04:24, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Howard, thanks for offering your help. Only about half a sentence in the article is about anti-terrorism, and about a paragraph about process control in a very general way. I think I'll tweak the article a bit more before seeking approval. Henry A. Padleckas 04:46, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

OK. You may want to look at Milt's ammonia synthesis article. It may be in the talk page archives, but I did provide some material on anti-terrorism, at least some of which got into the approved article.

I might not lead off with the MSDS, since that's as relevant to small operations as large plants. It's relevant, but there are safety guidelines unique to the large-scale environment. Howard C. Berkowitz 12:56, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Howard, this is the section of Ammonia production that you're talking about:

In transport, ammonia containers must have proper hazardous material placards, and, if the pertinent threshold quantitity is exceeded, may need additional safeguards, such as reporting the shipment to industry monitoring services such as CHEMTREC[11] or additional local agencies. There may be restrictions on transporting hazardous materials through tunnels, or possibly streets in high-density areas.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, citing its major concern as toxic release, lists anhydrous ammonia, or mixtures containing at least 1 percent ammonia, when stored in quantites of 10,000 pounds or more, as a chemical of interest, which falls under the Risk for Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Standards (CFATS) regulations and guidance. Organizations that store or transport more than the threshold quantity of 10,000 pounds, or believe they are at a higher than normal risk, should use the Chemical Security Assessment Tool.

Some of this might possibly be applicable for this article. Milton Beychok 21:15, 5 December 2009 (UTC)

Question

Hi Henry, I'm in the process of reading your article, it impresses me as very authoritative. However, since you implicitly exclude other industries, such as petrochemical and pharmaceutical, I wonder about examples of chemical plants. Would it not be good to mention in the lede a few examples of the chemicals produced by chemical plants? Probably most are not endproducts but (poisonous/explosive) feedstock for other industries, but even so, it would be interesting to know and some of the chemicals will give red links that may inspire other people to color them blue.--Paul Wormer 07:06, 6 December 2009 (UTC)

I finished reading the article, and it confirms what I wrote above, it is well written, but a few examples are called for. The article is very abstract, nowhere is mentioned what goes through the piping or is stored in the containers. Further, since there is some attention to the workers and work environment, I would also add that, given the fact that most chemical plants are 24 hours in operation, the operators must work in shifts. When I did an internship at a fertilizer (nitrate) plant (45 years ago), we had three 8 hour shifts a day and four teams covering the week. Is that still common? I remember vividly the shift from 10 pm until 6 am, sitting in the control room fighting sleep and talking to the operators, who all were very good at doing crosswords. --Paul Wormer 09:43, 6 December 2009 (UTC)