Duisburg / Brzeg Dolny (Poland), in April 2015. The chemicals company PCC Rokita SA, Brzeg Dolny (Poland) has completely converted its chlorine production to environmentally sound and energy-efficient membrane technology. The chlorine plant based on the conventional amalgam process had previously been shut down at the beginning of March 2015 following a period of uninterrupted operation that went back to 1976. After a brief plant standstill, commissioning of all the electrolyzers of the membrane electrolysis system was successively initiated at the end of March. The first to be started up were the two serving membrane electrolysis plant 1 which had already been commissioned back in 2010. Then, at the beginning of April, the two recently installed and completed electrolyzers of membrane electrolysis plant 2 also went into operation.It is further anticipated that the final expansion stage in the project will be completed with the commissioning of a fifth electrolyzer in June/July 2015. Overall, this will increase the annual production capacity of PCC Rokita from a current 120,000 metric tons of chlorine to 135,000 metric tons, and from 135,000 metric tons of caustic soda to 152,000 metric tons. Plans are also already in place for 2016 to further increase capacity through additional process optimization, causing the annual capacity figures to then rise to 149,000 metric tons of chlorine and 168,000 metric tons of caustic soda.
In addition to completely eliminating mercury from the production process, the technology switch has substantially reduced energy consumption. As a result, annual CO2 emission is set to be cut by 140,000 metric tons. The investment project means we have already met the EU requirements ahead of schedule which foresee the general decommissioning of facilities using the amalgam process by December 2017.