Publications

The present study, "Substituting Environmentally Relevant Flame Retardants: Assessment Fundamentals", was commissioned by the German Federal Environmental Agency (Umweltbundesamt, UBA) and prepared during the period from September 1998 to December 2000.

Between 1990 and 2000 greenhouse gas emissions in Germany and the UK decreased by more than 18 % and about 12 %, respectively. Thus, Germany and the UK appear to be among the few industrialised countries which are on track to meet the emission reduction targets they have committed themselves to under the Kyoto Protocol and the subsequent European Union’s Burden Sharing Agreement.

Multi-nutrient fertilizers have increasingly gained importance in the last decades mainly for economic reasons, but also due to technical and physiological aspects. According to the type of manufacture, they are divided into mixed fertilizers and complex fertilizers.

This document comprises the contribution of Germany to the exchange of information in the European Union on the use of Best Available Techniques (BAT) to control the environmental impact of industrial processes and describes the production of urea.

The annual world production of sodium carbonate (soda) amounted to approximately 31,5 million tons in 1993. The main share is synthetic soda. Nowadays it is only manufactured by means of the Solvay technology, which – as it uses NH3 as auxiliary material – is also called „ammonia soda process“. Approximately 35 % of the world production is natural soda, mainly manufactured in the USA.

The manufacture of sodium perborate takes place as tetrahydrate at first, which is converted in a second process to monohydrate by means of dehydration. Both compounds, the tetrahydrate as well as the monohydrate can be used for the production of detergents. The monohydrate is also used for the manufacture of dishwashing detergents.

Two different types of processes are used for the production of titanium dioxide in Germany : the sulfate process and the chloride process. In Germany, titanium dioxide is produced at four plants, three of them apply the sulfate process, one of them uses the sulfate as well as the chloride process.    

Sodium silicates are mostly used for the production of detergents. Moreover, they are needed in big volumes as basic product for the manufacture of silicic acid as additives for rubbers and plastics and cracking catalysts for the petro-chemical industry.

Synthesis gases are mixtures from hydrogen and carbon monoxide. Raw materials are solid, liquid or gaseous fuels, which react under additivation of oxygen and / or steam at higher temperatures. Often the production of synthesis gas is a very economic recycling process of residues, which can provide the basis for basic chemical products, e.g. methanol.

Quality targets are reference values and guidelines with regard to a particular protected asset and serve as a benchmark for the quality of surface waters.

Part I: New Strategies for the Ecological Risk Assessment and Risk Management of Substances
Part II: Chemicals in the Environment which Interfere with the Endocrine Systems of Humans and Wildlife
In german available as Text 30/2001

Part II: Chemicals in the Environment which Interfere with the Endocrine Systems of Humans and Wildlife