Try the stringr package.
This should work
chemical=c("basic", "alkalin", "alkali", "acid", " ph ", "hss")
chemical_match <- str_c(chemical, collapse = "|")
chemical_match
concept_df$match[str_detect(concept_df$concept, chemical_match)] <-
"chemical"
concept_df
> concept_df
concept match
1 butan acid chemical
2 nano diamond particl FALSE
3 slurri\ncomposit FALSE
4 composit ph polis chemical
5 inorgan particl FALSE
6 grind liquid FALSE
7 liquid formul FALSE
8 nanoparticl FALSE
9 size abras particl FALSE
10 agent malic acid chemical
--
*Abraham MathewData Ninja and Statistical Modeler*
*Minneapolis, MN720-648-0108@abmathewksAnalytics_Blog
<https://mathewanalytics.wordpress.com/>*
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