Development and evaluation of uhmwpe microfibers polymeric diaphragms for electrolytic production of sodium hydroxide
International Journal of Development Research
Development and evaluation of uhmwpe microfibers polymeric diaphragms for electrolytic production of sodium hydroxide
Received 20th June, 2021; Received in revised form 19th July, 2021; Accepted 27th August, 2021; Published online 29th September, 2021
Copyright © 2021, Celso Fidelis de Moura Junior et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
The electrolytic process with a polymeric membrane to produce chlorine and sodium hydroxide is still the most used technology in the world. However, the most common material used in the production of diaphragms was asbestos, which was banned due to its toxicity to humans in its use and extraction. Thus, this work aimed to develop and evaluate a new and cheaper polymeric diaphragm using Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene (UHMWPE) microfibers. Therefore, nine Polymeric Diaphragms (PD) were developed with different compositions and evaluated based on measurements of their thickness, permeability, resistivity, and performance during the electrolytic process. The results showed that higher proportions of short-length microfibers produced more promising diaphragms. In addition, the PDG diaphragm had a soda production of 35.68 g/L, a value higher than that presented by the commercial diaphragm, which was 11.04 g/L.
