Mercury Chor-alkali is the least common form of chlorine production because it creates a lot of drawbacks. The use of such a large amount of mercury results to be very costly, especially when involving the cost of environmental protection. While some of the pros of mercury might include requiring low brine purity and very high quality of products, mercury technology is one of the most expensive technologies when it comes to electricity consumption, which makes it very unsustainable. While Diaphragm Cell Technology has been around for a while it is still one of the most common methods of chlorine production in the United States. Similar to Mercury Technology, Diaphragm Cell Technology does not require purification of the brine. It solely required the brine to be …show more content…
Another technology that has recently emerged is Membrane Cell Technology. This technology produces much higher purity sodium hydroxide and is quite effective when it comes to electricity consumption. Unfortunately, there are some major drawback to Membrane Cell Technology. The membranes are extremely expensive, the chlorine quality is slightly lower, and it involves a very complicated and costly brine filtration system for the process. The newest and most economically friendly technology that has been presented by the German company Bayer is Oxygen-Depolarized Cathode Technology. This technology alters the cathode compartment by oxidizing the water with oxygen gas to alters the reaction in a way that created hydroxide ions which facilitate the reaction and allowing the required voltage to be dropped. This greatly improves the quality of the sodium hydroxide at a very high energy efficiency. Similar to membrane technology ODC technology required high brine