Examples of industrial electrolysis and electrosynthesis

In this section some examples of electrolysis and electrosynthesis of great industrial relevance will be described. Nevertheless, it should be made clear that there are many other important processes which are not described here. A summary is given in Table 15.1. 

This is one of the largest electrochemical industries in the world. It consists in the electrolysis of sodium chloride as brine to give chlorine and caustic soda. Chlorine is used in the preparation of vinyl chloride for PVC, as a bleaching agent for paper and paper pulp, as a disinfectant, besides other chloration applications. Caustic soda is important in mineral processing, and in the paper, textile, and glass industries. Table 15.2 shows recent data for industrial consumption of chlorine and caustic soda in the USA. 

Extraction of chlorine and sodium hydroxide from NaCl 

Sodium, magnesium, lithium (electrolysis of the fused salts) 

Electrolysis in aqueous solution (principally copper and zinc) 

---