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Molten Salt Electrolysis for Sustainable Metals Extraction and Materials Processing 37 5.1.3.Discussion of Electrowinning Combined with Electrorefining It is concluded that by using recessed electrodes, separated by a diaphragm, the possibility of electrorefining with very low energy consumption can be achieved. Carbothermically produced metals are always cheaper than those produced by electrolysis but suffer from the disadvantage of low purity. It is proposed that fused salt electrorefining may offer an energy efficient way of upgrading the metal. Fused salt electrowinning and electrorefining face different challenges in the next decade. Fused salt electrowinning is essentially a mature industry and, generally, one can only see incremental improvements in performance, without dramatic changes in cell design. These changes would be brought about by new materials for cell construction, anodes and cathodes, but it is difficult to foresee how the cells can be made competitive with pyrometallurgical reactors without a dramatic change in cell design and a substantial decrease in anode to cathode spacing. To a certain extent this can be achieved by modelling and careful control of the gas, evolved at the anode, to maximise mass transfer without increasing the recombination of the anodic and cathodic products. For a more striking change, one may need to consider other means to remove the products. It is suggested that centrifugal forces may find application in fused salt electrowinning. Using a modest centrifugal field, substantial decreases in the anode-to-cathode spacing have been achieved without any loss of current efficiency. One interesting concept is to carbochlorinate in the anodic part of the cell, thereby, eliminating the high cost of chlorinating oxides, external to the cell. This would also have the effect of reducing the cell potential, but, perhaps, at the cost of a decrease in the purity of the cathodic product. In these cases, it may be necessary to combine electrowinning with electrorefining. The development of electrorefining has been very much hindered by the lack of suitable cell designs to give energy efficient processing. Indications of possible design changes are given which make fused salt electrorefining more attractive. This opens up the opportunity for fused salt electrorefining to be applied to the treatment of scrap, combined with carbothermic reducing to give a high grade product and, lastly, combined with electrowinning. Other areas may be as follows: • Novel reactions and electrolytes. • Innovative cells. A properly balanced research effort from universities, government, and industry with sufficient resource base and directed toward gaining a better understanding and insight into the fundamentals involved in these processes is a very real need. The timing is right for the development of such a program and every possible effort should be made for its initiation. 5.2. The Challenges and Opportunities for Metals Extraction For primary aluminium production, it seems reasonable to concentrate sustainable research and development efforts on the existing HH process and modification thereof because many improvements can still be made to cell design, electrode and cell liningPDF Image | MOLTEN SALT ELECTROLYSIS
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