LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Hydrochloric Acid: Production
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Hydrochloric acid, or hydrogen chloride, is either a colorless liquid with a pungent odor, or a colorless to slightly yellow gas which can be shipped as a liquefied compressed gas. Hydrochloric acid is one of the most widely used industrial chemicals. It is used in pickling and cleaning steel and other metals, in the production of many inorganic and organic chemicals, in food processing, in cleaning industrial equipment, in extraction of metals and for numerous other purposes. It is used in the manufacture of phosphoric acid, chlorine dioxide, ammonium chloride, fertilizers, dyes, and artificial silk and pigments for paints. It is used as a refining ore in the production of tin and tantalum, as a lab reagent, and as a metal treating agent. It is used to remove scale and dust from boilers and heat exchange equipment, to clean membranes in desalination plants, to increase oil well output, to prepare synthetic rubber products by treating isoprene, and to clean and prepare other metals for coatings.
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In the Middle Ages, hydrochloric acid was known to European alchemists as spirits of salt or acidum salis. It is still known as "Spirits of Salt" when sold for domestic cleaning purposes in the United Kingdom today. Gaseous HCl was called marine acid air. The old (pre-systematic) name muriatic acid has the same origin (muriatic means "pertaining to brine or salt"), and this name is still sometimes used. Notable production was recorded by Basilius Valentinus, the alchemist-canon of the Benedictine priory Sankt Peter in Erfurt, Germany in the fifteenth century. In the seventeenth century, Johann Rudolf Glauber from Karlstadt am Main, Germany used sodium chloride salt and sulfuric acid for the preparation of sodium sulfate in the Mannheim process, releasing hydrogen chloride gas.
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Hydrochloric acid has a wide variety of uses. In steel production, hydrochloric acid is used to clean (or "pickle") the steel to remove scale building prior to further processing. Before galvanizing or production of finished products such as nails it is necessary to first pickle the steel.
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Hydrochloric acid is used widely in chemical industry for acidity regulating, dissolving and neutralizing reactions. It is used for treatment and production of metal and metallic substances, colouring agents, synthetic rubber and in sugar industry. Other applications are regeneration of ion exchangers and pH control. As a rest from production, hydrochloric acid is present in precipitants and flotation agents, which results in large quantities in these types of products.
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Hydrochloric acid is used in pickling operations for carbon, alloy and stainless steels. Steel pickling is the process by which iron oxides and scale are removed from the surface of steel by converting the oxides to soluble compounds. Pickling is required for steel products that undergo further processing such as wire production, coating of sheet and strip, and tin mill products. Hydrochloric acid is used primarily for continuous pickling operations in which hot-rolled strip steel is passed through a countercurrent flow of acid solution.
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Hydrochloric acid is a fundamental chemical, and as such it is used for a large number of small-scale applications, such as leather processing, household cleaning, and building construction. In addition, a way of stimulating oil production is by injecting hydrochloric acid into the rock formation of an oil well, dissolving a portion of the rock, and creating a large-pore structure. Oil-well acidizing is a common process in the North Sea oil production industry.
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