Heat Balance during the Electrowinning of Neodymium Metal in Molten Salt

Abstract

Energy consumption per unit weight of metal (kwh/kg of metal) is one of the most important economic indicators in the process of molten salt electrolysis. It is related to the heat loss of salt bath and the current efficiency of the process. The current efficiency is highly dependent on electrolysis temperature. On the other hand, the temperature of salt bath may increase significantly due to the difference (larger energy input than consumption) in heat balance at the beginning of electrolysis, which may cause different electrolysis temperature from an initially targeted value. This results in a bad effect on current efficiency. Therefore, it will be helpful to the reduction of energy consumption to compare the calculated and measured values of the temperature change of salt bath through the heat balance review at the early stage of electrolysis and to evaluate the energy loss to outside. In this study, based on the authors’ experimental data, the heat balance was reviewed at the beginning of the electrolysis, and it was possible to evaluate the energy loss to the outside and the increase of the temperature of the salt bath quantitatively. Through such a method, heat loss reduction plan can be derived and current efficiency can be improved so that energy consumption can be reduced.