PROCESS FOR CONVERTING HYDROGEN-CHLORIDE TO CHLORINE

There exists, worldwide, a strong incentive for the development of eff icient processes that permit the recovery of Cl-2 from HCl waste bypro ducts, to avoid the need for disposal of this toxic and corrosive mate rial. In this paper we will describe such a process that has been deve loped by our group and which is currently being tested at the pilot pl ant scale. The process uses a salt mixture impregnated on a high surfa ce area support alternately chlorinated and oxidized in two fluidized- bed reactors in series. The process development included basic studies of the mechanism of the HCl oxidation reaction over a broad range of temperatures (25-400 degrees C) and pressures (10(-5) Torr, 1 atm). Th is paper will present an overview of the results of these studies. On the basis of these investigations, a preliminary economic evaluation w as completed and a pilot-plant-scale unit was designed and constructed .