Report - Rhodia Chemical Plant, Avonmouth - Sept 2009

[GremlinxSB]

Great report and photos - thank you very much for posting it. As a chemical engineer who started their career when we used to have a chemical industry, it breaks my heart to see how little is left today. I don't think Joe Public realise how good at this we used to be and how much we used to have. Anyway - trying to unpick what some of the processes are to fill in a few blanks for you.

The shots you've got of the 2,4 DFNB holding tanks are almost certainly from ISC's (International Smelting Corporation) halogenated organics intermediates business. 2,4 DFNB is 2,4 di-fluoronitrobenzene - can be used as a building block for pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. It's really nasty stuff - highly flammable and toxic through inhalation and skin absorbtion (respiratory suppressant). The other shots I still haven't quite got to the bottom of - I know Avonmouth had a large zinc blast furance and did quite a bit of metal processing, so I'm assuming the alumina chutes and iron hopper are part of one of the associated processes.

Incidentally, mustard gas used to be made on site there for WW1 - apparently an old shell was uncovered when building ASDA and Porton Down got involved. Must have been quite exciting...

I'm no chemist, but I was an accountant for Rhodia at that site and others in the UK and USA (although a couple of accounting co-workers called me "The Chemist".
The 24DFNB was further processed into 24DFA (DiFluoroAniline) and sold as an intermediary in the pharma/ag markets as you said. other FNB/DFNBs and FAs were made on that plant - the FA plant.
The rest of the site contained the No.4 HF (Hydrogen Fluoride) plant, Isoflurane and Halothane plants (inhalation anesthetics). Isceon 12/11 and 22 plants (refrigerants), the KF plant, Aluminium Sulphate plant, a refrigerant tank farm for traded products. a water treatment plant for the effluent. It also used to house a Sulphuric Acid/Oleum plant that was decommissioned in the 90s. There were storage sheds for Fluorspar (for HF) and Sulphur (for H2SO4) that were each the size of covered football fields. After the Sulphuric Acid plant was closed, Avonmouth received brown acid from the smelting works next door plus clean acid from Rhodia Stavely (Derbyshire)