Eliminating nonuniform geometric effects for long-term stable electrochemical extraction of high-purity titanium.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 40117375.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.ads7083 and PMC identifier 11927662.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Electrorefining of low-grade titanium is one of the strategies for achieving high-purity titanium. However, the presence of nonuniform geometric effects would be induced to impact the nonuniform geometric distribution of overpotential, leading to impurity dissolution and nonuniform Ti deposition. Here, in situ high-temperature characterizations on the molten salt electrorefining process are applied to establish an anodic dissolution principle for quantitatively evaluating nonuniform geometric effects of electrode. For eliminating the nonuniform geometric effects, coaxial anode-cathode configurations are designed to promote the nonuniform anodic dissolution and nonuniform cathodic deposition. Consequently, the geometric uniformity of titanium products on the cathodes is substantially enhanced, and thus, long-term stable electrorefining process (~12 hours, ~330% increment compared to the electrode of reference configuration) and highly purified titanium products (99.2%) are achieved.