Help wanted re: working in chemical industry

DoctorEdgeWild

Hello folks,

I have been working as the manager of a warehouse for about 4 months now. The company provides chemical services to the automotive painting industry.

I basically manage stock levels of our products and send them to where they need to be.

The problem being that I have no real knowledge of the products other than working knowledge (what containers to use, packing regulations, transport rules etc.)

It is not essential to my job but I would like to know more about the chemicals that I send out every day and generally improve my knowledge in the area.

The products we carry are all for use with paint and paint waste systems. They break down into the following categories - Denaturants, flocculents, biocides and paint/thinners.

I would love to learn more about chemicals, having never done it in school or anything. If someone could recommend some books/websites etc. it would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading, Darren. :-)

krd

I heard Primo Levi's Periodic Table is good place to start (I don't have a copy)

Text books can be a pretty awful place to look - text books can be awful fullstop. The history of chemistry is very interesting in itself. It was kranks trying to turn their urine into gold - very literally and accidently starting an industry.

The BBC did a chemistry documentary series recently - you can see it on Youtube.

I'd love to read some books on industrial chemistry.

The dye industry is really where the chemical industry got going. Aniline dyes. like BASF stands for Badische Anilin und Soda-Fabrik. Bleaches and dyes.

DoctorEdgeWild

Thanks for your reply and suggestions. It is definitely proving to be a very interesting job already.

The only part of my job which could be considered 'chemistry' is a quality control test I do using a specific mix of products which results in a seperation of paint from water. It's really interesting to do it and has given me a real interest in learning more.

It's not necessary to my job directly at all but when you find yourself shipping the odd tonne or two of hydrochloric acid around the country, you start to wonder how and why it all gets used.

krd

DoctorEdgeWild wrote: »

It's not necessary to my job directly at all but when you find yourself shipping the odd tonne or two of hydrochloric acid around the country, you start to wonder how and why it all gets used.

It really helps to know this stuff. I know a few people who did not have degrees in chemistry, but got a chance to work in the industry, and then set up niche businesses for themselves - just because they had reasonable expertise of that niche. They probably knew more chemistry than the average graduate.

For safety purposes you really should learn this stuff too. "Accidents" can happen when people are not fully aware of the materials they're dealing with. People get things like bad acid burns from just a splash.

Gru

I'm not certain where you'll get them but generally with chemicals you can get SDS's, or Safety Data Sheets for that particular chemical. The manufacturer should be able to supply these for you or perhaps via their website.

These would be the best solution to learning about what potential risks each chemical carries and also lists what storage requirements there are as well as medical information should you or anyone else become exposed. I think it would be essential to learn about the risks involved and fair play for looking for the information.

Also as a rule treat all chemicals as being highly hazardous and being bad you no matter how much you are exposed.

Also you might look into a Diphoterine. We have it where I work and it is essentially a compound used to rinse skin and eyes in the event of exposure to hazardous chemicals and is immensely more effective than water.

DoctorEdgeWild

Thanks for the suggestions.

I have MSDS sheets for each product we do as I have to ship them out sometimes with the orders and they are helpful for learning more about a particular chemical.

As for safety, definitely with you both on that one. There are plenty of horror stories from the lads I work with who use the chemicals so keeping 'Better safe than sorry' as my motto for a long time!

Thanks for the suggestions, they are much appreciated. There's a lot to learn but it's proving very interesting so far.