Electrochemistry commercial electrolytic processes

The starting material for all industrial chlorine chemistry is sodium chloride, obtained primarily by evaporation of seawater. The chloride ion is highly stable and must be oxidized electrolytically to produce chlorine gas. This is carried out on an industrial scale using the chlor-alkali process, which is shown schematically in Figure 21-15. The electrochemistry involved in the chlor-alkali process is discussed in Section 19-. As with all electrolytic processes, the energy costs are very high, but the process is economically feasible because it generates three commercially valuable products H2 gas, aqueous NaOH, and CI2 gas. 

In recent years, a number of electrolytic processes have utilized membranes in producing both anodic and cathodic products. By far, however, the most important application of this technology has been in the chlor-alkali industry. Intense commercial and academic interest has been focused into this field during the past decade so that ion exchange theory as applied to membranes is in a more advanced state than any of the other ion exchange systems. The primary examples of industrial chlor-alkali electrochemistry are found in the production of chlorine, caustic soda and potash, hydrogen and hypochlorite (1) (4). 

The cathodic reduction of dissolved oxygen to peroxide was first demonstrated by Traube in 1882. Commercialization of an electrolytic process for hydrogen peroxide has been retarded by several factors related to the complex electrochemistry of oxygen reduction, together with a poor understanding of the influence of electrode materials and cell design on the process efficiency. There has been a gradual awareness of the desirable factors for a successful process over the last 10-15 years, which include ... 

In this context, nanoporous carbons are extremely interesting materials which can be used either as electrodes of supercapacitors or hydrogen reservoir. They are commercially available at a low cost and under various forms (powder, fibers, foams, fabrics, composites) [3]. They can be obtained with well-developed and controlled porosity [4,5] and with a rich surface functionality [6,7], As far as electrochemistry applications are concerned, very important advantages of carbons are a high electrical conductivity, a good chemical stability in various electrolytic media and the possibility to control wettability by the nature of the surface functionality. When they are not playing the role of active material for the storage process, carbons may be also useful as additive in a composite to improve its physical properties. Particularly carbon nanotubes are able to improve the electrical conductivity and mechanical properties of electrodes [8],... 

---