The German Chemical Industry in the Twentieth Century


Book Description

In the twentieth century, dyes, pharmaceuticals, photographic products, explosives, insecticides, fertilizers, synthetic rubber, fuels, and fibers, plastics, and other products have flowed out of the chemical industry and into the consumer economies, war machines, farms, and medical practices of industrial societies. The German chemical industry has been a major site for the development and application of the science-based technologies that gave rise to these products, and has had an important role as exemplar, stimulus, and competitor in the international chemical industry. This volume explores the German chemical industry's scientific and technological dimension, its international connections, and its development after 1945. The authors relate scientific and technological change in the industry to evolving German political and economic circumstances, including two world wars, the rise and fall of National Socialism, the post-war division of Germany, and the emergence of a global economy. This book will be of interest to historians of modern Germany, to historians of science and technology, and to business and economic historians.




The American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry


Book Description

American Synthetic Organic Chemicals Industry: War and Politics, 1910-1930




Hell's Cartel


Book Description

The remarkable rise and shameful fall of one of the twentieth century's greatest conglomerates At its peak in the 1930s, the German chemical conglomerate IG Farben was one of the most powerful corporations in the world. To this day, companies formerly part of the Farben cartel—the aspirin-maker Bayer, the graphics supplier Agfa, the plastics giant BASF—continue to play key roles in the global market. IG Farben itself, however, is remembered mostly for its infamous connections to the Nazi Party and its complicity in the atrocities of the Holocaust. After the war, Farben's leaders were tried for crimes that included mass murder and exploitation of slave labor. In Hell's Cartel, Diarmuid Jeffreys presents the first comprehensive account of IG Farben's rise and fall, tracing the enterprise from its nineteenth-century origins, when the discovery of synthetic dyes gave rise to a vibrant new industry, through the upheavals of the Great War era, and on to the company's fateful role in World War II. Drawing on extensive research and original interviews, Hell's Cartel sheds new light on the codependence of industry and the Third Reich, and offers a timely warning against the dangerous merger of politics and the pursuit of profit.




Business Chemistry


Book Description

Business Chemistry: How to Build and Sustain Thriving Businesses in the Chemical Industry is a concise text aimed at chemists, other natural scientists, and engineers who want to develop essential management skills. Written in an accessible style with the needs of managers in mind, this book provides an introduction to essential management theory, models, and practical tools relevant to the chemical industry and associated branches such as pharmaceuticals and consumer goods. Drawing on first-hand management experience and in-depth research projects, the authors of this book outline the key topics to build and sustain businesses in the chemical industry. The book addresses important topics such as strategy and new business development, describes global trends that shape chemical companies, and looks at recent issues such as business model innovation. Features of this practitioner-oriented book include: Eight chapters covering all the management topics relevant to chemists, other natural scientists and engineers. Chapters co-authored by experienced practitioners from companies such as Altana, A.T. Kearney, and Evonik Industries. Featured examples and cases from the chemical industry and associated branches throughout chapters to illustrate the practical relevance of the topics covered. Contemporary issues such as business model design, customer and supplier integration, and business co-operation.




A History of the International Chemical Industry


Book Description

Fred Aftalion's international perspective of the history of chemistry integrates the story of chemical science with that of chemical industry. This new edition includes events from 1990 to 2000, when major companies began selling off their divisions, seeking to specialize in a particular business. Aftalion explores the pitfalls these companies encountered as well as the successes of "contrarians"--those companies that remained broad and diversified. He uses BASF, Dow, and Bayer as examples of true contrarians.




Value Creation


Book Description

Written by a global team of top managers and senior McKinsey experts, this expanded and completely revised second edition provides a wide-ranging manual on the subject of value creation in the chemical industry. Drawing on extensive first-hand management experience, several hundred consulting engagements, and in-depth research projects, the authors outline the key ingredients for managing chemical companies successfully. The book addresses in detail key issues of strategy and industry structure, describes best practice in the core functions of the chemical business system, looks at the state of the art in organization and post-merger management, and covers a selection of the most important current topics such as industrial biotechnology, the role of private equity, and the chemical landscape in China. Although mainly directed at executives and managers in the chemical industry, the knowledge contained in this comprehensive overview will also benefit scientists, engineers, investors, students, and anyone else dealing with management issues in this sector.




Membrane Technology


Book Description

Membrane Technology - a clean and energy saving alternative to traditional/conventional processes. Developed from a useful laboratory technique to a commercial separation technology, today it has widespread and rapidly expanding use in the chemical industry. It has established applications in areas such as hydrogen separation and recovery of organic vapors from process gas streams, and selective transport of organic solvents, and it is opening new perspectives for catalytic conversion in membrane reactors. Membrane technology provides a unique solution for industrial waste treatment and for controlled production of valuable chemicals. This book outlines several established applications of membranes in the chemical industry, reviews the available membranes and membrane processes for the field, and discusses the huge potential of this technology in chemical processes. Each chapter has been written by an international leading expert with extensive industrial experience in the field.




Synthetic Worlds


Book Description

This revealing study considers the remarkable alliance between chemistry and art from the late eighteenth century to the period immediately following the Second World War. Synthetic Worlds offers fascinating new insights into the place of the material object and the significance of the natural, the organic, and the inorganic in Western aesthetics. Esther Leslie considers how radical innovations in chemistry confounded earlier alchemical and Romantic philosophies of science and nature while profoundly influencing the theories that developed in their wake. She also explores how advances in chemical engineering provided visual artists with new colors, surfaces, coatings, and textures, thus dramatically recasting the way painters approached their work. Ranging from Goethe to Hegel, Blake to the Bauhaus, Synthetic Worlds ultimately considers the astonishing affinities between chemistry and aesthetics more generally. As in science, progress in the arts is always assured, because the impulse to discover is as immutable and timeless as the drive to create.




Industry and Ideology


Book Description

This book examines IG Farben Chemicals and the power of big business in the Third Reich economy.




Chemical Technology


Book Description

Chemical Technology is based on lectures the author gave at the Technische Hochschule of Karlsruhe and at the University of Freiburg. Part 1 of this book deals with chemical technology and describes subjects dealing with apparatus, unit operations, and chemical economics. The text reviews industrial chemical reactions, raw materials preparation for reaction, thermal and catalytic processes, and a history of chemical technology. This part also addresses transportation, storage of raw materials, and the design and construction of a chemical factory. Part 2 concerns special chemical technology, including topics such as raw material upgrading; processing of products in the chemical industry; and unit processes application toward consumer goods production. This part reviews materials sourcing from animals, minerals, and vegetables, such as processing of products from living organisms, the recovery of sugar, starch, and other carbohydrates. The book also reviews products of the chemical industry including low-molecular weight consumer goods, detergents, aromas, explosives, plastics, elastomers, synthetic leather, textile, and some building materials. Chemistry students, chemical and process technology students, and mechanical engineering students with interest in chemistry will find this book valuable.