Approaches to CPSIA, Prop 65 and other federal, state and local chemical requirements

This one-hour webinar kicks off Chemical Watch's Global Outlook 2023 webinar series. It outlines the most important recent regulatory updates and hot topics throughout the Asia Pacific region

Fabio H. Ribeiro is the R. Norris and Eleanor Shreve Professor of Chemical Engineering at Purdue. He is also the Director of CISTAR (Center for Strategic Transformation of Alkane Resources), a National Science Foundation Engineering Research Center (https://cistar.us/) at the Davidson School of Chemical Engineering, Purdue University.

The new product-oriented chemical industry has three categories of products with different key characteristics. The first and most obvious category is commodities, the same products that used to dominate the chemical enterprise. The key for producing these products is their cost. The second and third categories of products may be less familiar. The second category involves molecules with molecular weights of 500 to 700 and with specific social benefits. The most obvious examples are pharmaceuticals. The key to their production is their time to market, i.e., the speed of their discovery and production. The third category includes products where the value is added by a specific microstructure. The key to these products is their function. For example, I don’t care why my shoes shine after I have applied polish; I only care that they do shine. Customers pay a premium for such a function.

On January 21st, 2003, Members of AIChE's Center for Chemical Process Safety had the rare privilege to observe the safety procedures used at the Kennedy Space Center to load the hypergolic thruster fuels onto the Space Shuttle Columbia. Just 11 days later, the Columbia disintegrated on reentry. As details of the accident emerged from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board, it became clear that there were many lessons that chemical engineers could learn from NASA's actions leading up to this tragic accident. This presentation will link the loss of the Columbia to the 2005 explosion at the BP Texas City refinery which killed 15 and injured 180, and highlight six key actions useful to prevent chemical accidents, protect the integrity of research, and maybe even improve your life.