Page 179 - CW E-Magazine (9-4-2024)

Salt Expo & ICASMC 2024

Bromine and its compounds serve losses through percolation, and for with the recycling of salt from indus-
pivotal roles across diverse chemical enhancing evaporation rates of brine trial wastewater and desalination re-
applications. The global demand for bro- to increase yields, she informed. jects. In the future, the creation of cav-
mine has surged from 470,000-tonnes ern space for hydrogen storage is likely
in 2015 to 700,000-tonnes in 2019, with Quality salt needs of chlor-alkali to produce marketable brine or salt.
anticipated compound annual growth industry “The production volumes of salt from
rates (CAGR) of 4% and 7% for global Mr. Ajit Kumar Kotecha, General secondary sources could become im-
and Asia-Pacific demand, respectively. Project Manager, GHCL Ltd., a leading portant and impact regional and global
The US and Israel lead in production, soda ash producer, highlighted the need markets,” he said.
while India, holding a 5% market share for continuous upgradation of salt qua-
in Asia-Pacific, boasts larger bromine lity due to demand for higher quality Vacuum salt
reserves than China. salt from the chlor-alkali sector and for 12%
exports. “Efficient brine management
CSIR-CSMCRI has developed an is the key to producing better quality
innovative and sustainable methodo- salt,” he stated. Rock salt
logy for obtaining high-purity brine 18%
with 99% NaCl, and efficiently recove- Dr. Randheer Yadav, General Man-
ring marine salts from dilute sources ager-Technical Services, Grasim Indus- Solar salt
like seawater and desalination plant tries Ltd., a large chlor-alkali producer, 47%
reject brines. Diverging from previous pointed out that the growing expecta-
methods centred on individual marine tions of the chlor-alkali industry for
chemicals, this approach attains high- high purity salt stem from the deploy-
purity NaCl while selectively segregat- ment of new-age high-performance
ing gypsum, calcium carbonate, mag- membranes that help reduce power
nesium hydroxide, potassium chloride, consumption. Brine salt
and bromine from dilute brines. This 23%
process can be integrated seamlessly “For the chlor-alkali industry, 60-70% Fig. 1: Global market of salt, by source
with existing salt production methods, of opex is accounted for by power, Source: Salt Market Information
said Dr. Upadhyay. so the focus is on reducing power
consumption. Another related concern Trace elements extraction
Raising productivity and yield of is the release of CO from the use of A few presentations by researches
2
solar saltworks power. So low power operations are gave updates on feasibility studies be-
Dr. Bhoomi Andharia, Senior Scien- economically and ecologically benefi- ing done at different levels to extract
tist, CSIR-CSMCRI, spoke about the cial for chlor-alkali units. Salt quality trace elements like lithium and ura-
productivity and yield aspects of solar has a key influence on power consump- nium from seawater. Seawater contains
saltworks and highlighted the need for tion and CO emissions and has a direct a variety of cations and anions beyond
2
closer collaboration between the scien- bearing on membrane/electrode life common salt, but in trace amounts.
tific community and salt manufacturers through different ions present in it,” Extracting these trace metal ions poses
for modernisation of the industry. She he explained. challenges due to their low concentra-
pointed out the key role for scientific tion, high hydration energy, and mutual
intervention in all aspects of solar salt ‘Secondary sources of salt becoming interference. Given the very low con-
works, including enhancing yields & increasingly important’ centrations of these metals in seawater,
energy efficiencies, and recovery of Dr. Stefan Schlag Leon Beraud, a most technologies will have economic
marine chemicals. salt market expert from Switzerland, challenges.
informed that the current global salt
She gave details about a mathemati- consumption is of the order of 340-mt, In this context, Dr. Alok Paital,
cal model developed CSIR-CSMCRI and most salt is produced as solar salt Principal Scientist, CSIR-CSMCRI,
for designing of solar salt works, where from seawater. spoke about the EU’s ‘Sea4Value’ pro-
algorithms help compute the surface ject, which aims to extract around ten
area for salt compartments. Work has However, secondary sources of salt such trace elements from desalination
also been done on prevention of brine are becoming increasingly important brine.

Chemical Weekly April 9, 2024 179

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