Specialty chemical plants manufacture compounds for many products in various industries, including agricultural fertilizers, electronic circuit boards, construction materials, and consumer goods like detergents and pharmaceuticals. With the growing demand of the specialty chemical market, the industry faces several unique challenges that could affect operations.

• High capital spending – Plants must ensure material reliability, implement regular maintenance plans and minimize costs while operating at maximum efficiency.
• Governmental regulation – Whether plants produce caustic materials or compounds meant to be consumed by humans, they’re required to meet environmental and trade standards. Each plant must implement processes that ensure all regulations are met to avoid fines.
• Market changes – All processes need to be updated and modified to meet evolving consumer needs. In addition, strong growth in pharmaceuticals underscores the need to meet more regulatory and quality assurance requirements.
• COVID-19 pressures – The global pandemic had an unprecedented impact on the U.S. economy and the state of the chemical industry, which experienced a significant temporary decline in demand since the pandemic began in early 2020.

Optimize specialty chemical processes with representative sampling 

Due to these concerns, the specialty chemical industry relies on sampling to ensure their production meets compliance, quality, and hazardous material transportation standards. Representative sampling solutions empower these producers to make informed process decisions with composite product samples that minimize high capital costs. These systems deliver the insight plants need to make process decisions that will meet policies, enhance efficiencies, improve product quality and enhance their bottom line.

Meet federal and local legislations. Representative sampling allows plants to provide a composite sample that helps identify the EPA requirements of acute and chronic human health effects, as well as environmental impacts, to ensure they’re well within the required limits.

Maximize process efficiencies. The variety of specialty chemicals produced within a plant and the high capital requirements to keep it running leave producers susceptible to cross-contamination and costly downtime when production stalls. Automatic sampling systems improve efficiency by maximizing uptime and reducing operator involvement in the sampling process.

Improve quality production. Sampling throughout the specialty chemical production process ensures your processes meet production expectations, are free from contamination, and produce the expected quality product. Representative sampling ensures that your sample is indicative of your entire operation. It confirms you’re not only testing for the required contaminants but accurately sampling for product consistency and quality.

Promote safety. Specialty chemicals can be caustic, corrosive, and potentially harmful to operators, the environment, and your equipment. Manual sampling can expose operators to these dangerous compounds. By implementing representative sampling, you separate the operator from the process to reduce potentially harmful exposure and ensure maximum equipment performance. This also eliminates human bias in the sample and reduces the risk of errors.

Eliminate transportation concerns. Not following hazardous shipping requirements can result in up to $500,000 in fines. Representative sampling before transportation allows you to confirm your product is within the required container compatibility, blocking, and bracing limits. This ensures that you’re accurately reporting to the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) what you’re transporting and that it will remain safe until reaching its final destination. It also helps you meet EPA, state, and international specialty chemical exporting standards.

Traditional approaches to manual sampling can lead to unrepresentative samples, sample panel maintenance issues, and potentially unsafe conditions for operators. Through representative sampling, specialty chemical producers can ensure accurate and safe sampling every time.

Sentry Equipment has decades of experience engineering the sampling equipment specialty chemical producers depend on to ensure product quality, maximize profitability and meet rigorous standards.

Contact us at +1-262-567-7256, or complete our online contact form for more information.