4. Oxychlorination

4.1 Principle

Oxychlorination uses hydrochloric acid or metal chlorides as chlorinating agents, and O ₂ , Ca(OCl) ₂ , SO ₃ or H ₂ O ₂ as oxidizing agents. Oxychlorination can be carried out electrolytically at low temperatures.

Industrially, only high-temperature chlorination using the HCl-oxygen couple (pure or air) is practised, enabling the by-product HCl to be recovered in substitutive chlorination processes. Sometimes chlorination and oxychlorination are carried out simultaneously, using hydrocarbon, chlorine and oxygen....