Chlorine world production capacity

The world production capacity of chlorine reached 53 million tons in 2002 from approximately 22 million tons in 1970 [1-7] and is expected to increase to 65 million tons by the year 2015 [8]. In this chapter, the major manufacturing processes and the factors affecting the growth pattern of the chlor-alkali industry are presented. 

Today the membrane process is the state of the art for producing chlorine and sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide. All new plants are using this technology. The production capacity of chlor-alkali plants using the membrane process reached about 21% of total world production capacity in 1995 and is predicted to increase to about 28% by 2001 (Table 19) [133]. The diaphragm cell capacity remains constant and there is a decline in mercury cell capacity. 

Phosphorus trichloride is the most important phosphorus-halogen. The world production capacity was estimated (1988) at > 300 0001. It is formed by the combustion of phosphorus in a dry stream of chlorine... 

U.S. chlorine trifluoride production is several metric tons per year. Most of the product is used in nuclear fuel processing. A large production plant for chlorine trifluoride was operated in Germany during World War II with a reported capacity of 5 t/d (106,107). As of 1993, Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. was the only U.S. producer. The 1992 price was ca 100/kg. 

At present about 77% of the industrial hydrogen produced is from petrochemicals, 18% from coal, 4% by electrolysis of aqueous solutions and at most 1% from other sources. Thus, hydrogen is produced as a byproduct of the brine electrolysis process for the manufacture of chlorine and sodium hydroxide (p. 798). The ratio of H2 Cl2 NaOH is, of course, fixed by stoichiometry and this is an economic determinant since bulk transport of the byproduct hydrogen is expensive. To illustrate the scde of the problem the total world chlorine production capacity is about 38 million tonnes per year which corresponds to 105000 toimes of hydrogen (1.3 x I0 m ). Plants designed specifically for the electrolytic manufacture of hydrogen as the main product, use steel cells and aqueous potassium hydroxide as electrolyte. The cells may be operated at atmospheric pressure (Knowles cells) or at 30 atm (Lonza cells). 

World production of Bra in 1990 was about 438 000 tonnes pa, i.e. about one-hundredth of the scale of the chlorine industry. The main producing countries are (tonnes) USA 177000, Israel 135 000, Russia 60000, UK 28 000, France 18 000 and Japan 15 000. The production capacity of Israel has recently increased almost threefold because of expanded facilities on the Dead Sea. Historically, bromine was shipped in individual 3-kg (net) bottles to minimize damage due to breakage, but during the 1960s bulk transport in monel metal drums (100-kg capacity) or lead-lined tanks (24 or 48 tonnes) was developed and these are now used for transport by road, rail and ship. The price of Bra in tank-car lots was 975/kg in 1990. 

Krupp Uhde has more than 40 years of experience in the design and construction of chlorine/caustic soda plants [1]. The company s 150 plants throughout the world have an overall production capacity of approximately 8 million metric tonnes per year of NaOH (100%) and thus make Krupp Uhde unique in its field. 

The largest electrolysis process using an ion exchange membrane is the chlor-alkali process to produce caustic soda, chlorine gas and hydrogen gas. The production capacity of caustic soda in the world was about 56.4 million ton/year in 2001 (demand was about 45.1 million ton/year in 2001).117... 

Production of CI2 and NaOH by electrolysis of NaCl is a huge industry with annual production capacity in excess of 50 million tons of NaOH per year. Membrane cells are the state-of-the-art technology, but mercury and diaphragm cells are still used because the capital cost for their replacement is substantial. The mercury cell technology is more than a century old and stiU accounts for nearly half of the world s production capacity. Chlorine evolves from a DSA (dimensionally stable anode) situated above a pool of mercury with NaCl brine in between. Mercury reacts with sodium to form sodium amalgam, which is removed and hydrolyzed in a separate reactor. 

Of the industrial activities under the heading of process engineering the chloralkali industry is probably the most important. Chlorine world capacity in 1985 was estimated as 43 million metric tons and total world production in 1983 as 31 million tons. Over 80% of the chlorine produced is used to produce other chemicals. Large-tonnage products associated with chlorine include caustic soda and soda ash (anhydrous sodium carbonate). 

World capacity for chlorine exceeds 45 x 10 t/a. With an annual energy consumption of about 1.5 X 10 kWh, the chlor-alkali process is one of the largest industrial consumers of electrical energy. The chlorine worldwide production of a country is an indicator of the state of development of its chemical industry. 

The total world production of chlorinated paraffins is believed to be approximately 300 000 t/year, the capacity about 380 0001. 

The cumene oxidation route is the lea ding commercial process of synthetic phenol production, accounting for more than 95% of phenol produced in the world. The remainder of synthetic phenol is produced by the toluene oxidation route via benzoic acid. Other processes including benzene via cyclohexane, benzene sulfonation, benzene chlorination, and benzene oxychl orin ation have also been used in the manufacture of phenol. A Hst of U.S. phenol production plants and their estimated capacities in 1994 are shown in Table 2, and worldwide plants and capacities are shown in Table 3. 

Although a small fraction of the world s vinyl chloride capacity is stiU based on acetylene or mixed actylene—ethylene feedstocks, nearly all production is conducted by the balanced process based on ethylene and chlorine (75). The reactions for each of the component processes are shown in equations 1—3 and the overall reaction is given by equation 4 ... 

Benzotrichloride is produced from total side-chain chlorination of toluene or of residual products from benzyl chloride production. In Western Europe, Bayer has the largest capacity (14,000 t/yr), and there are only two significant producers in the United States Occidental Chemical in Niagara EaUs, New York (20,000 t/yr), and Velsicol Chemical (11,000 t/yr). Total capacity in the western world is 68,000 t/yr and production of benzotrichloride in 1988 was estimated at 31,500 t. 

Chlor-alkali production — With a 63% production volume of the total world chlorine capacity of about 43.4 million tons (in 1998), the chlor-alkali (or chlorine-caustic) industry is one of the largest electrochemical technologies in the world. Chlorine, Cl2, with its main co-product sodium hydroxide, NaOH, has been produced on industrial scale for more than a century by -> electrolysis of brine, a saturated solution of sodium chloride (-> alkali chloride electrolysis). Today, they are among the top ten chemicals produced in the world. Sodium chlorate (NaC103) and sodium hypochlorite (NaOCl, bleach ) are important side products of the... 

The oxidation is conducted in a proprietary burner, with extra heat supplied because, although the reaction is exothermic, it is not self-sustaining. The chlorine is recycled. The process was developed by Du Pont in the 1940s, and its first plant started operating in 1958. The Chloride process has progressively replaced the older Sulfate process because it produces less effluent. In 2005, 54% of the world capacity for titanium dioxide production used the Chloride process. See also ICON. 

There should be a high enough retention time in the reactor so that excess fluorine converts chlorine monofluoride to chlorine trifluoride. The current worldwide production of CIF3 is less than 50 metric tons per year, which is much smaller than it was during World War II. It was reported that a German plant had a capacity of 5 tons/day during World War II [62],... 

Polyethylene is produced from ethylene gas, which is produced from ethanol. Brazil is a world leader in the sugar cane-based production of ethanol (—> 2.23). The first bio-polyethylene plant (with a capacity of 200 thousand tons a year) was opened in 2009 in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. If the price of petroleum, the usual feedstock, is above 50 per barrel, the technology is profitable. The priee of petroleum has been higher than 100 a barrel since 2010. Vinyl ehloride and PVC can be produced from bioethylene readily, and such a process is already used in India. It may sound odd, but as long as there is salt in the oceans, chlorine, hydroehloric acid and PVC are renewable resomees... 

ITie major chlorine-producing regions in the world are North America, Western Europe, and China, constituting 61% of the total capacity in 2001 [2]. About 6% of the total production is from Eastern Europe, 10% from Japan, and 14% from Asia, excluding... 

PVC is by far the biggest chlorine containing end product. In 1998 the world capacity was nearly 30 million tonnes per year. The demand for PVC is rising at a rate of 1.5 - 5 % per year, so in many parts of the world (China, India, South East Asia) new electrolysis plants are erected to cover these requirements. 

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