Improved dissolution performance of V2CO anode by adding V phase to efficiently prepare metallic vanadium by molten salt electrolysis

Abstract

Molten salt electrolysis with a consumable vanadium-containing anodes (such as V-Al, V-C, V₂CO, et al) is a prospective strategy to produce metallic vanadium. Uniform dissolution and high utilization rate of vanadium-containing anodes are challenges. A dense V/V₂CO composite anode is proposed to improve the dissolution performance, and synthetized by the sintering of V₂CO solid solution and metallic vanadium. Compared to V₂CO, the density and conductivity of V/V₂CO cermet are obviously enlarged. The optimal content of metallic vanadium is 10 wt%. The density and conductivity of V/V₂CO are 5.41 g/cm³ and 2.4 × 10⁵ S/m, respectively. In NaCl-KCl-5.24 wt% VCl₂ molten salts, the utilization rate of V/V₂CO composite anode is up to 72 %. Cathode current efficiency and electricity consumption for metallic vanadium are 82 % and 1.24 kWh/kg, respectively. Dendritic metallic vanadium is obtained, and the purity reaches 99.65 %. A kiloampere-level electrolytic cell is simulated to identify the size of anode and cathode.