Chemical Industry——The Assistant of the Industrial Revolution

Ever since the time when it was formed, chemical industry has provided necessary and basic materials for various industrial sectors. The historical mission of chemical industry was just to be an assistant of the Industrial Revolution during each period.

During the Industry Revolution in 18th to 19th century, the handicraft production was changed into machine production, the steam engine was invented, and the socialized production began. It was at this time that the modern chemical industry was born. Faced with the urgent need of the Industrial Revolution, many new chemical technologies emerged as the times required, which solved the needs of many industrial sectors such as textile, glass, soap and so on. As the same time, along with the rise of iron industry and charcoal refining industry, the organic chemical industry was also developed. Synthetic dyes, chemical synthetic drugs and synthetic fragrances came into being one after another. What's more, rubber tires, celluloid and cellulose nitrate were also put into production. As a result, the early chemical industry provided necessary raw materials and auxiliary products for the textile industry, transportation industry, power industry and machine manufacturing, which contributed to the success of the Industrial Revolution.

After the two world wars in the 20th century, some new technologies emerged in oil refining industry, such as catalytic cracking, catalytic reforming, and so on, which greatly increased the production of steam, coal, diesel oil and lubricating oil. Especially, since the success in the splitting decomposition of hydrocarbon for the production of ethylene and propylene, the basic organic chemical production has been established on the solid technological basis of the petrochemical industry. As a result, it was able to provide a large amount of organic raw materials, solvents, additives for various industrial sectors. Since then, people often take the splitting capacity of hydrocarbon for the production of ethylene as a national symbol of the development of productive force in petrochemical industry.

On the other hand, as the high-pressure and high-temperature technology in synthesis ammonia has been realized in industry, and the nitric acid has been put into production, so a lot of nitrification materials have appeared. The development of explosive industry was especially rapid. Ever since the emerging of chemical industry, the energy of explosives has increased by more than ten times than before. This not only solved the urgent need of the war, more importantly, it was widely applied in the mines, railways, bridges and other civilian blasting projects.

What's more, chemical industry has also made crucial contribution in nuclear engineering and aerospace industry, so we can say that chemical industry is a strong and powerful assistant of the Industrial Revolution.

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