Iodine and bromine are ele­ments that play an impor­tant role in the devel­op­ment of mod­ern sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, and soci­ety. Both belong to the group of halo­gens, share sim­i­lar physic­o­chem­i­cal prop­er­ties, and are often found in the same geo­log­i­cal envi­ron­ments.

There­fore, iodine and bromine are typ­i­cal­ly stud­ied togeth­er. Their resources have both eco­nom­ic and social sig­nif­i­cance, as they influ­ence the devel­op­ment of med­i­cine, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, chem­i­cal indus­try, and the agri­cul­tur­al sec­tor.

Iodine and bromine is includ­ed in the list of min­er­als of nation­al impor­tance, approved by Res­o­lu­tion of the Cab­i­net of Min­is­ters of Ukraine No. 827 of Decem­ber 12, 1994, as chem­i­cal raw mate­ri­als.

Characteristics

In nature, iodine and bromine are fair­ly wide­ly dis­trib­uted; how­ev­er, they usu­al­ly occur in a dis­persed state, since their com­pounds are high­ly sol­u­ble in water and are eas­i­ly leached from rocks. Under favor­able con­di­tions, iodine crys­tal­lizes as gray­ish-black plates. Its most impor­tant com­pounds include iodide salts of potas­si­um, sodi­um, and ammo­ni­um, as well as organ­ic com­pounds such as methyl and eth­yl deriv­a­tives. Due to its strong anti­sep­tic prop­er­ties, iodine is wide­ly used in the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try. In glob­al prac­tice, raw mate­ri­als for its pro­duc­tion include not only under­ground waters but also nitrate pro­duc­tion waste and marine algae.

Bromine in its free state is a red­dish-brown liq­uid with a sharp odor. When cooled, it forms red-brown crys­tals. The most com­mon bromine com­pounds include bro­mide salts of potas­si­um, sodi­um, ammo­ni­um, and iron, as well as organ­ic com­pounds such as methyl bro­mide, meth­yl­ene bro­mide, and oth­ers. Owing to its prop­er­ties, bromine and its com­pounds have a very wide range of applications—from fuel anti­knock agents and pho­to­graph­ic mate­ri­als to med­i­cine and agri­cul­ture.

Raw mate­ri­als for bromine pro­duc­tion include sea­wa­ter, brines of salt lakes, potas­si­um plant liquors, and under­ground waters of oil and gas fields. In Ukraine, bromine is tra­di­tion­al­ly extract­ed from brines of salt lakes. For indus­tri­al suit­abil­i­ty, impor­tant para­me­ters include not only con­cen­tra­tion and chem­i­cal com­po­si­tion of brines but also tem­per­a­ture and alka­lin­i­ty. Ele­vat­ed tem­per­a­ture reduces ener­gy costs for heat­ing dur­ing pro­cess­ing, where­as high alka­lin­i­ty requires large amounts of sul­fu­ric acid, com­pli­cat­ing the process and increas­ing pro­duc­tion costs.

Thus, iodine and bromine are impor­tant min­er­al resources essen­tial for the devel­op­ment of med­i­cine, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, chem­i­cal indus­try, and agri­cul­ture. Their resources in Ukraine are rep­re­sent­ed by sev­er­al promis­ing deposits, and pro­duc­tion is sup­port­ed by spe­cial­ized enter­pris­es. At the same time, sus­tain­able devel­op­ment requires not only ratio­nal use of exist­ing reserves but also expan­sion of the resource base through the search for new sources.

Distribution within Ukraine

The most impor­tant indus­tri­al source of iodine and bromine is for­ma­tion waters of oil and gas fields. In Ukraine, three main oil- and gas-bear­ing regions are dis­tin­guished where com­mer­cial con­cen­tra­tions of these ele­ments have been iden­ti­fied in sub­sur­face brines. The lead­ing area is the Pre-Carpathi­an fore­deep. Here, aquifers are asso­ci­at­ed with frac­tured and cav­ernous lime­stones, sand and sand­stone beds, marls, and silt­stones. Iodine con­cen­tra­tions in for­ma­tion waters range from 7 to 78 mg/L, while bromine ranges from 67 to 400 mg/L.

The Dnipro–Donets Basin also has high poten­tial. The most promis­ing are Devon­ian salt-bear­ing deposits, where some of the high­est con­cen­tra­tions have been record­ed: up to 170 mg/L of iodine and 4,545 mg/L of bromine. This makes the region extreme­ly impor­tant for poten­tial indus­tri­al devel­op­ment.

Iodine–bromine waters of the Crimean Penin­su­la are asso­ci­at­ed with Cre­ta­ceous and Pale­o­gene deposits. They are char­ac­ter­ized by a cal­ci­um chlo­ride com­po­si­tion, with iodine and bromine con­tents rang­ing from 20–35 mg/L and 20–117 mg/L, respec­tive­ly.

In Ukraine, indus­tri­al extrac­tion and pro­cess­ing of bromine are car­ried out at the Satsky Chem­i­cal Plant and the Perekop Bromine Plant. The Satsky enter­prise pro­duces iron bro­mide as well as potas­si­um and sodi­um bro­mides. The Perekop plant oper­ates on the basis of the unique Sivash deposit of com­plex chem­i­cal raw mate­ri­als. Here, bromine occurs in brine in the form of MgBr₂ at con­cen­tra­tions of 54 to 220 mg/L. This deposit rep­re­sents a shal­low bay of the Sea of Azov, divid­ed by arti­fi­cial dams into three water bod­ies with dif­fer­ent degrees of salin­i­ty. In addi­tion to bromine, it con­tains sig­nif­i­cant reserves of sodi­um and mag­ne­sium salts.

The only explored indus­tri­al deposit of iodine-bear­ing under­ground waters in Ukraine is the North­ern Sivash deposit (Kher­son region). The waters occur at depths of 1,300–1,600 m, have a tem­per­a­ture of about 60°C, and are char­ac­ter­ized by a self-flow­ing regime. Proven reserves amount to 33.6 thou­sand m³/day with an aver­age iodine con­tent of 29.8 mg/L, enabling an annu­al pro­duc­tion of up to 365 tons of this ele­ment.

Of par­tic­u­lar inter­est are asso­ci­at­ed waters from oil fields. These are con­sid­ered techno­genic deposits, since iodine and bromine con­tent depends not only on nat­ur­al con­di­tions but also on extrac­tion tech­nol­o­gy, pro­duc­tion rates, and the sub­se­quent uti­liza­tion of pro­duced water.