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It is used to flocculate and increase the density of the drilling fluid to overcome high downwell gas pressures. In oil and gas exploration, salt is an important component of drilling fluids in well drilling. Sodium chloride is heavily used, so even relatively minor applications can consume massive quantities. In the Mannheim process, sodium chloride is used for the production of sodium sulfate and hydrochloric acid. Sodium carbonate, in turn, is used to produce glass, sodium bicarbonate, and dyes, as well as a myriad of other chemicals.
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Sodium chloride is used in the Solvay process to produce sodium carbonate and calcium chloride. Sodium hydroxide is extensively used in many different industries enabling production of paper, soap, and aluminium etc. Some applications of chlorine include PVC thermoplastics production, disinfectants, and solvents. Other technologies are under development due to the high energy consumption of the electrolysis, whereby small improvements in the efficiency can have large economic paybacks. Each of those uses a different method to separate the chlorine from the sodium hydroxide. This electrolysis is conducted in either a mercury cell, a diaphragm cell, or a membrane cell. It is the starting point for the chloralkali process, the industrial process to produce chlorine and sodium hydroxide, according to the chemical equation 2 NaCl + 2 H 2 O → e l e c t r o l y s i s Cl 2 + H 2 + 2 NaOH