Electrochemistry
One of the revolutionary breakthroughs that has been made at Calera is the ability to generate sodium hydroxide at lower energy than other competing technologies. Calera’s Alkalinity Based on Low Energy (ABLE) process uses an electrochemistry process to split salt to form an alkaline solution and acid at one-third to one-fifth of the energy of the current state-of-the-art. Anywhere salt and electricity are available we can make alkalinity for the MAP process. What is unique about the process is that it builds on advances in chlor-alkali and fuel cell design to reduce the energy requirements for the process. We have demonstrated the continuous operation at laboratory scale and have constructed a 1-ton per day pilot scale system at our facility in Moss Landing. We have teamed with the world’s largest supplier of advanced electrochemical cell components to accelerate the scale-up of the technology. Once the pilot scale optimization is complete, the process is readily scalable to full scale through the addition of more cell stacks. The product of our process is caustic (sodium hydroxide) and acid (hydrochloric acid). The caustic is used directly in the MAP process as a source of alkalinity.
If our ABLE process is required to supplement the natural alkalinity at a host site, aqueous HCl would be co-produced. This would be used in a number of proprietary processes under development at Calera with the remainder being sold into the merchant market. Current industrial uses for aqueous HCl include uses in the food, biofuel and pharmaceutical industries, steel pickling, and the production of organic chemicals such as chloromethane.
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