Chemical industry

In the chemical industry, carbon monoxide is the foundation of one carbon chemistry. As the main component of synthetic gas and various types of gas, carbon monoxide is an important raw material for synthesizing a series of basic organic chemical products and intermediates. Starting from carbon monoxide, almost all basic chemicals can be produced, such as ammonia, phosgene, alcohols, acids, anhydrides, esters, aldehydes, ethers, amines, alkanes, and olefins. At the same time, utilizing the properties of carbon monoxide reacting with transition metals to generate carbonyl complex metals or carbonyl complex metal derivatives, various homogeneous reaction catalysts required for organic chemical production can be prepared. In addition, carbon monoxide can be used as a terminator in polyethylene polymerization reactions.

Metallurgical industry 

In the metallurgical industry, using the thermal decomposition reaction of carbonyl complex metals, carbon monoxide can be used to extract high-purity nickel from raw ore, as well as to obtain high-purity powder metals (such as zinc white pigments) and produce certain high-purity metal films (such as tungsten and molybdenum films). At the same time, carbon monoxide can be used as a reducing agent for refining metals, such as reducing iron oxides in steelmaking blast furnaces (equation can be found in "Physical and Chemical Properties · Chemical Properties"); In the production of polycrystalline diamond films, research grade carbon monoxide (≥ 99.99%) can be used as a carbon source for the chemical vapor deposition process. In addition, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen gas (synthetic gas) can be used to produce certain special steels, such as directly reducing iron ore to produce sponge iron.

Other aspects

In addition to its applications in the chemical and metallurgical industries, carbon monoxide can also be used as a fuel, while high-purity carbon monoxide is mainly used as a standard gas, in carbon monoxide lasers, environmental monitoring, and scientific research. Among them, carbon monoxide standard gas can be applied to the calibration and testing of petrochemical process control instruments, quality control of petrochemical products, environmental pollutant detection, automotive exhaust emission detection, calibration of mine alarms, detection of various factory exhaust gases, medical instrument calibration, power system transformer oil quality detection, air separation product quality control, calibration of traffic safety detection instruments, geological exploration and seismic monitoring Metallurgical analysis, gas appliance experiments and calorific value analysis, calibration of instruments and meters in the fertilizer industry, etc.

In addition, carbon monoxide is commonly used for the preservation of fish, meat, fruits and vegetables, and bagged rice, especially for the preservation of sashimi. It is also used as a color fixative due to its ability to make the meat red in color.