Electrolytic production of neodymium metal from a molten chloride electrolyte

Details

• Personal Author:
  Chambers, Michael F. ; Murphy, Jim E.
• Corporate Authors:
  United States. Bureau of Mines
• Description:
  "The U.S. Bureau of Mines conducted experiments on electrowinning of neodymium metal by using a molten-metal cathode at 650 deg. C and an electrolyte of 50 mol pct ndcl3 (neodymium chloride) and 50 mol pct kcl (potassium chloride). The molten-metal cathodes were alloys of magnesium and zinc or magnesium and cadmium. Current efficiencies were 90 pct with a mg-zn cathode and 80 pct with a mg-cd cathode. The mg-cd cathode was easily separated from the electrolyte. In contrast, the mg-zn cathode tended to mix with the electrolyte, making separation difficult. The cathode metals were separated from the neodymium by distillation at 1,100 deg. C under a vacuum of 10-3 torr. Neodymium metal of 99.9 + Purity was recovered from the mg-cd alloy cathode after 30 min distillation time. The neodymium recovered from the mg-zn system contained almost 2 pct zn after vacuum distillation. Continuous operation using the mg-cd alloy cathode was demonstrated." - NIOSHTIC-2
  
  NIOSHTIC no. 10011011
  
  
• Subjects:
  Occupational Health Safety
• Series:
  Mining Publications
• Subseries:
  Report of Investigations
• Document Type:
  Text
• Genre:
  Report
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Pages in Document:
  7 numbered pages
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:10011011
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:33c67c39cf916bf296c6d36b52c525dd73f902e1720159705b4427c1a8cfd6372679de350fee5be2bef16c4562de1d6d8718b144d3e4cf2ab45926fef1eeb05c
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/10115/cdc_10115_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.02 MB ]