Technology

Magiclor is the miniaturization of the well-known chlor-alkali process. The chlor-alkali process is the controlled electrolysis of aqueous solutions of sodium chloride by the passage of current over catalytic/non-reactive electrodes.

At the anode:

2Cl− → Cl
2 + 2e−

At the cathode:

2H
2O + 2e− → H2 + 2OH−

The obtained products are sodium hydroxide (NaOH), hydrogen gas (H2), chlorine (Cl2), and various other effective oxidizing species (not shown above) including ozone (O3), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), chlorine dioxide (ClO2), and oxygen radicals (O·). See benefits.

If Cl
2 and OH− are contacted, the following reaction occurs under basic conditions:

Cl
2 + 2OH− → Cl− + ClO− + H
2O

Simplified membrane cell:

Chlor-alkali Membrane

Fig 1. Simplified membrane cell used in the electrolysis of brine. At the anode (A), chloride (Cl−) is oxidized to chlorine. The ion-selective membrane (B) allows the counterion Na+ to freely flow across, but prevents anions such as hydroxide (OH−) and chloride from diffusing across. At the cathode (C), water is reduced to hydroxide and hydrogen gas. The net process is the electrolysis of an aqueous solution of NaCl into industrially useful products sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and chlorine gas. (Image license: CC Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.)

References:

  1. O'Brien T.F., et al., Handbook of Chlor-Alkali Technology, Springer US (2005).
  2. Wellington, T.C., eds., Modern Chlor-Alkali Technology, Springer Netherlands (1992).