The automobile, one of the most striking symbols of twentieth-century civilization, is an indispensable element of our lives today and tomorrow. The automobile industry employs millions of people, and in addition to the millions whose work is linked to the existence of the automobile industry, there are very, very few human activities that involve as many people. Do we need to add the hundreds of millions of people who drive the car every day to emphasize again that the automobile and everything that goes with it is very serious?
Automobile Industry
The development of the automobile industry over the past 100 years has been a challenge to a wide variety of fields of science and technology and has involved in its orbit the achievements of both basic and applied research. It is impossible to compare the contribution to the creation of the modern automobile of the products of various industries, for it is impossible to do without any of them. However, it is undoubtedly the chemical industry that provides the greatest volume of consumption of the automobile. Indeed, let the mass of the car is 1 ton (and let it be a ton of metal). For 100 thousand km run such car “eats” about 10 tons of fuel, i.e. 10 times its mass, and this is not all that it will take for these 100 thousand km of run from the chemical industry. Besides this, there are many “low-tonnage” applications of chemical industry products, without which a car can neither be built nor operated.
All this seems quite obvious. However, another thing is not quite obvious. The fact is that we can distinguish two fields of application for chemical industry products. One is the area of large modern industrial production plants that produce tens and hundreds of thousands of cars per year. Technology of such production, including everything, connected with use of products of chemical industry, methods of chemical technology, is described in technical documentation, regulations, technological cards. Specialists for such productions are trained by special educational institutions, which have developed teaching aids, models, stands, instructions… If difficulties arise in this production (and they do arise), then at the service of large’ production are highly qualified specialists, research institutes and laboratories, designed to serve this enormous in importance and volume branch of industry. Here, in general, everything is fine-tuned and, at least in principle, it is clear where to go with its tasks and current troubles.
Nevertheless, here the car has reached the consumer; for whom it was made,-the motorist, or a small household, or a repair shop. In addition, here one is confronted in full measure with a multitude of everyday problems for which there are no simple and obvious solutions. And not only because of the lack of those or other materials or parts, but because of the lack of knowledge – general ideas, specific recipes and tips, the inability (quite understandable and even unapologetic) to understand the specific language of chemical names, terms, brands of substances, subtle differences between seemingly almost the same, intended for almost the same …
Technical Documents?
What to do in such a situation, when referring to serious textbooks or special technical documents, even if they fall into your hands, can only confuse the consumer completely, and the advice of not very competent friends can lead to disaster (they also “had pain in this place” and were “cured” by a patented remedy – but will it help or hurt in your case)?
It is necessary to say at once that some world tendencies connected with the use of achievements of chemical science and industry, which will find application in automotive industry, arise and develop as a consequence of resolution of natural and usual for any industry contradictory requirements. Thus, an individual material is optimal for each specific application, but it is desirable that there are not too many materials, and almost any motorist would prefer to have a more universal material, maybe not quite optimal, but suitable for different situations, because how many troubles have to be endured, for example, due to incompatibility of “old” and “new” formulations of fluids designed for one purpose. Another fundamental and intractable contradiction is the requirements of manufacturability and aesthetics. All these and other contradictions are eventually resolved on the basis of two defining criteria – safety and economy, with the first (at least theoretically) always remaining decisive.
In essence, there are the following main product groups in the chemical industry, without which modern automotive manufacturing and operation can’t exist.
These are:
– Fueling fluids (fuels, oils, greases, coolants, etc.);
– Rubber – tires and rubber goods;
– Plastics;
– Finishing and decorative materials (upholstery, varnishes and paints, anticorrosive coatings, etc.);
– Adhesives, sealants.
The most obvious direction for expanding the use of products of the chemical industry in the automotive industry seems to be an increase in the use of plastics. Hopes here are associated primarily with the creation of a new generation of materials, the so-called structural plastics. While previously plastics were quite effectively used where high dielectric properties and good appearance were required – and that is practically all, high strength properties of new materials have recently come to the forefront, making it possible to make products from them that work under mechanical load, and manufacturability, which made it possible to simplify dramatically and reduce the cost of manufacturing very massive products of complex configuration.
Applications of Chemical Industry Products
Many other applications of chemical industry products related to low-tonnage chemistry are less noticeable in volume but very impressive in results. The most obvious prospects are further qualitative improvements in traditional directions such as creation of new additives and additives for oils and greases, additives improving anti-detonation properties of motor fuels, resistance to aging of rubber products, etc. All these are necessary and real elements of technical progress in improving the quality, reliability and environmental friendliness of manufactured cars.
However, the contribution of the chemical industry to the common cause is not limited to this. It is particularly worth highlighting the new challenges that are arising as both road transport and our understanding of all aspects of its application evolve. For example, it is well known that one of the most acute problems of recent years has been environmental pollution. The automobile is doing its “dirty work” here as well, especially in cities, where the problem of air pollution by combustion products of fuels plays a particularly prominent role.
That’s It!
There are the challenges of today, as society’s demands for environmental cleanliness are becoming more and more irreconcilable every year. These are the modern tasks of the chemical industry, which the future development of the automobile industry and the operation of the automobile poses to it!