Food
Chlor-alkali chemistry keeps our food safe.
At home, in restaurants and in factories, chlor-alkali disinfectants make food preparation areas safe by removing pathogens like Salmonella and E.coli. Caustic soda is also used in certain types of tasty bread where it is known as lye but is also found in flavor enhancers such as vanillin, a key ingredient in vanilla ice-cream.
Chlor-alkali also helps in food applications such as:
- Clean paper and packaging to transport our foods,
- Fertilisers and herbicides used to grow food for the ever-expanding global population,
- Potassium hydroxide is important in regulating the acidity of soils to ensure that crops have the best possible conditions to grow in
- Sodium-based preservatives from caustic soda help to keep our food fresher for longer
Even common table salt is a chlor-alkali chemical (sodium chloride) which we use to make hundreds of other products (or to flavour our food!)
This video describes more on how chlor-alkali helps to feed the planet. Or learn how Claude, our 17 Success farmer uses Chlor-alkali. Clean and strong packaging is also essential to transport food to our tables, learn more with Wim, another of our 17 Successes.
