Chlorine global production

While the industry has to balance out globally there are none the less regional imbalances. Asia still has a deficit of chlorine derivative production and a large demand for PVC. Much of this is met with imported EDC as the feedstock. The EDC in normal times comes mainly from low-energy-cost regions such as the Middle East... 

Production of PCBs increased between 1930 and 1970, with a large increase in production after World War II. It is estimated that 650,000 tons of PCBs were produced in the United States during this 40-year period, with a peak of 42,000 tons in 1970. Global production was approximately twice that of the United States during this same period. Another 400,000 tons have been produced outside the United States after their production was banned in this country in 1979. Health problems started to appear in PCB plant workers soon after their commercialization. The first problem observed among PCB workers was chloracne, a condition resulting in skin lesions associated with overexposure to chlorine compounds. 

Sodium chloride has numerous uses one major producer lists more than 1,400 uses for its salt. Global production of salt is about 230 million tons annually about 50,000 tons are produced in the United States. The largest consumer of salt is the chemical industry, which uses approximately 60% of total production. The major chemical industry that uses salt is the chlor-alkali industry to produce soda ash (in countries that do not obtain it from natural deposits), caustic soda (NaOH), and chlorine (see Sodium Carbonate and Sodium... 

January 1989. Its later amendments of London (1990) and Copenhagen (1992) made it possible that global production of major ozone depleting substances has been curbed down to very low quantities. If the regulations will be followed in future years as well, it will not be before 2060 that the atmospheric chlorine abundance will have fallen to about... 

Vinyl Chloride. Approximately 16.5 billion lb of VCM were produced in the United States in 1999, making it one of the largest-volume petrochemicals. It has been reported that more than 35 percent of the global production of chlorine goes to the manufacture of VCM. Although most of the VCM comes from EDC by the route described previously, it can be obtained from other sources, including its production in the catalytic hydrochlorination of acetylene and as a byproduct in the synthesis of other chlorinated hydrocarbons. 

Chlorine and caustic soda (sodium hydroxide) are among the top ten commodity chemicals produced in the world. In 2004, North America produced about 29 million tons of chlorine and caustic soda.18 Figure 26.5 shows the global production of chlorine by region in 2004. 

In global terms, Dow Chemical is currently one of the largest chlorine producers, accounting for 13% of global production. More than 90% of this is used to make other products within the same company and most is used for domestic purposes. Dow has six manufacturing sites, with one in Canada, two in the United States, two in Germany, and one in Brazil. 

The chlor-alkali industry refers to the production of chlorine and sodiunr-hydroxide and in most cases is extended to the production also of sodium carbonate. It forms a significant part of heavy chemicals manufacture in the UK and abroad. For example, global production of chlorine alone is at present about 35 million tonnes a year. 

Table 1.2.5 gives the annual global production of important chemicals in 2003. In general, the structure of the chemical industry is characterized by a small number of base chemicals such as ammonia, ethylene, and chlorine, which are further converted into many intermediates such as ethylenoxide, styrene and vinyl chloride and... 

Table 6.19.4 European chlorine production and applications in 2009 (Euro Chlor, 2011). The global production was about 57 million tonnes in 2008 (https //www.vci.de/Themen/Umwelt-Sicherheit/Chlorchemie/Seiten/ Positionen-zur-Chemie-mit-Chlor.aspx, accessed 08.09.2012 see also Table 6.19.7).

The increased frequency of storms due to global warming has resulted in the contamination of surface water and groundwater from industrial effluents, municipal sewage, urban storm water runoff, and agricultural runoff [48, 49]. As a result, water sources used for human consumption have become more contaminated with heavy metals, POPs, pesticides, fertilizers, chlorination by-products, and pharmaceuticals [48]. 

The new antimicrobial is an order of magnitude less toxic, several orders of magnitude less volatile, easier to handle, more compatible with other water treatment chemicals, more effective against biofilms, and it generates less than half the disinfection by-products compared to chlorine or other alternatives. One hundred fifty billion gallons of industrial water have by now been successfully treated globally. Use of this new antimicrobial has substantially reduced environmental and human health risks from industrial water treatment by replacing nearly thirty million pounds of chlorine. The new product is proven to comparatively perform better, more safely, and it is substantially easier to apply than chlorine. 

PCDDs are present as trace impurities in some commercial herbicides and chlorophenols. They can be formed as a result of photochemical and thermal reactions in fly ash and other incineration products. Their presence in manufactured chemicals and industrial wastes is neither intentional nor desired. The chemical and environmental stability of PCDDs, coupled with their potential to accumulate in fat, has resulted in their detection throughout the global ecosystem. The number of chlorine atoms in PCDDs can vary between one and eight to produce up to 75 positional isomers. Some of these isomers are extremely toxic, while others are believed to be relatively innocuous. 

This book examines comprehensively the chlorine industry and its effects on the environment. It covers not only the history of chlorine production, but also looks at its products, their effects on the global environment and the international legislation which controls their use, release and disposal. Individual chapters are dedicated to subjects such as end use processes, water disinfection and metallurgy, environmental release of organic chlorine compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, legal instruments and the future of the chlorine industry. 

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