Chlorine devastating because the existing gas masks were difficult to deploy and had not been broadly distributed. Chlorine is the second halogen, being a nonmetal in group 17 of the periodic table. Its properties are thus similar to fluorine, bromine, and iodine, and are largely intermediate between those of the first two. Chlorine has the electron configuration [Ne]3s3p, with the seven electrons in the third and outermost shell acting as its valence electrons. Like all halogens, it is thus one electron short of a full octet, and is hence a strong oxidising agent, reacting with many elements in order to complete
Bromine production in the United States rail access, and difficult highway access, and was shut down in 1945. Dow found a better permanent location at Freeport, Texas, where a seawater extraction plant started in 1940, and a second in 1943. The Freeport plants recovered magnesium, sodium compounds, and chlorine, in addition to the bromine. The Freeport chemical operations are still active, but they stopped extracting bromine in 1969. Brine mining Bromine production in the United States Bromine production in the United States of 225,000 tonnes in 2013 made that country the second-largest producer of bromine, after Israel. The US supplied 29 percent of world production. Since