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The use of molten salts as “solvents” offers interesting possibilities for the treatment of ores, industrial by-products as well as scraps, allowing the development of processes that are mid-way between pyro- and hydrometallurgy, with the advantage of salts offering a wide choice of chemical and...

A new kind of membrane free liquid metal battery was developed. The battery employs liquid sodium and zinc as electrodes both in liquid state, and NaCl-CaCl2 molten salts as electrolyte. The discharge flat voltage is in the range of about 1.4 V–1.8 V, and the cycle efficiency achieved is about...

The electroreduction processes on a Mo electrode in a Na-Zn liquid metal battery cell with a molten NaCl-CaCl2-ZnCl2 electrolyte were investigated at 565°C. The effect of the battery operating parameters on the loss rate of Na was determined by using electrochemical techniques. The results indicated...

Alkali and alkaline earth metals such as lithium, sodium, magnesium and calcium are produced by electrowinning in chloride melts. Direct cathodic reduction of metal oxides in chloride melts has been proposed for the FFC process. Fundamental data for the anodic process on carbon in mixed chloride...

Iron metal is traditionally produced by carbothermic reduction in a blast furnace; an effective, but capital and energy intensive method that produces large amounts of CO₂, SO₂ and a variety of other contaminating byproducts. An alternative route to produce iron might be electrolysis in aqueous...

A major contributor to HF gas evolution during aluminium electrolysis is the hydrolysis of alumina water. The objectives of this work were to investigate the kinetics of HF generation, and how water residence time in the atmosphere above the bath influences the HF formation. The HF concentration in...

In addition to aluminium electrolysis, the electrolysis of rare earth (RE) metals from fluoride melts is a significant source of perfluorocarbon (PFC) emissions to the atmosphere. These processes have many similarities, they are both based on molten fluoride salt electrolysis at temperatures around...

There are several technologies that could help cut greenhouse gas emissions from silicon production, for example increasing the share of biocarbon in the reductant mix. Complete decarbonisation however requires the use of other reducing agents, such as hydrogen, electrolysis or metallothermic...

A challenge during rare earth (RE) electrolysis is to avoid emissions of perfluorocarbon (PFC) green-house gases. The objective of this work was to study how to operate the RE electrolysis process with neither PFC formation nor anode effect. Linear Sweep Voltammetry was carried out at 1050 and...

In the aluminium industry today, smelters often have to rely on more than one alumina supplier. This creates diversity in the properties of smelter grade alumina (SGA). A method has been developed to compare the HF formation from aluminas containing different amounts of water. The water content...

One of the major downsides of the current aluminium production process is the high amount of CO₂ e mission. One alternative is to replace the consumable carbon anodes with inert anodes so that oxygen evolves instead of CO₂ and PFC emissions. However, so far a sufficiently inert anode has not been...

Metallothermic reduction is, at the moment, the only commercially available process for the industrial production of titanium sponge (Kroll process). Although the apparatus and procedures have improved over the past 50 years, it is still difficult to recover the waste heat from the individual steps...

Zirconium nitride (ZrN) has proved to be a promising new catalyst material. Bearing in mind its recyclability at end-of-life, the objective of this work was to demonstrate recovery of Zr in an electrochemical process using a consumable ZrN anode. A mechanically stable ZrN anode was made from...

The electrochemical de-oxidation process, also called FFC-Cambridge process, has been proposed previously to produce reactive metals and their alloys through reduction of their metal oxides. The process works by introducing metal oxides into a molten salt bath where it is electrolysed to form metal...

One of the major downsides of the current aluminium production process is the high CO₂ emission. One alternative is to replace the consumable carbon anodes with inert anodes so that oxygen evolves instead of CO₂. Also PFC emissions will be eliminated by using inert anodes. However, so far a...

New battery technologies are necessary to cover the increasing demand for stationary energy storage as the green transition requires more use of renewable intermittent energy sources. The novel Na-ZnCl2 battery has been suggested as a solution to a cheap salt battery, exploiting abundant materials...