The plant, which will have an annual capacity of 20,000 metric tons will use an advanced technology to save energy and reduce CO2 emission, the company said. The facility is scheduled to start operating in the first half of 2011.
The company plans to produce chlorine on an industrial scale using the oxygen depolarized cathode specially developed by Bayer MaterialScience in electrolysis cells from Uhdenora. Electricity consumption will be up to 30% lower than in standard membrane technology, resulting in an indirect reduction of up to 10,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year, according to the company.
Chlorine is mainly produced using the membrane process. By feeding in gaseous oxygen, the new technology enables electrolysis to be performed at a lower voltage. This also reduces CO2 emissions.
Bayer MaterialScience has been using its oxygen depolarized cathode technology based on hydrochloric acid electrolysis on industrial scale at the Bayer Integrated Site Shanghai (BISS) in China and in Brunsbuettel, Germany.
Bayer MaterialScience and Uhde initiated the project in cooperation with RWTH Aachen University, Clausthal University of Technology and Dortmund University. Funding has been obtained from the BMBF (German Federal Ministry of Education and Research) under the FONA (Research for Sustainability) program.
