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2011-Sustainable Industrial Processing Summit
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| Editors: | Florian K |
| Publisher: | Flogen Star OUTREACH |
| Publication Year: | 2012 |
| Pages: | 630 pages |
| ISBN: | 978-0-9879917-2-0 |
| ISSN: | 2291-1227 (Metals and Materials Processing in a Clean Environment Series) |
Solubility Of ZrO2 In Molten Salt
Yongxiang Yang1; Y. Xiao1;1DELFT UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, Delft, Netherlands;
Type of Paper: Regular
Id Paper: 307
Topic: 6
Abstract:
A new process for the production of cheaper and pure zirconium has been recently developed. In the new process, molten salt electrolysis is used to prepare the crude zirconium metal for the zirconium – hafnium separation and zirconium refining. It is thus essential to understand the behavior of ZrO2 in the electrolyte, including the solubility of ZrO2 in various molten salt system (CaO – CaCl2 – NaCl –KCl – LiCl). The solubility results will lead to an optimum control of the added amount of ZrO2 as raw material into the electrolyte, and to have a better performance and operation of the molten salt electrolysis process. According to the information in the public literature, no solubility data of zirconium oxide in the molten salt systems was found. To provide the basic knowledge for zirconium electrolysis, the solubility of ZrO2 in NaCl-KCl and NaCl-CaCl2 based equi-molar molten salt system was experimentally determined in the present work. According to the experimental results, ZrO2 has generally limited solubility in the chloride system even at 850°C. It was found that addition of NaF and CaO has positive effect on the solubility. At 750°C, NaCl-CaCl2 system with addition of CaO and NaF gives highest solubility of 2.8 wt%. This provides the fundamental information of the electrolytes systems for the molten salt electrolysis of zirconium.