Electrorefining of High Carbon Ferromanganese in Molten Salts to Produce Pure Ferromanganese

Abstract

AbstractHigh carbon ferromanganese is used as a starting material to prepare pure ferromanganese by electrorefining in molten salts. High carbon ferromanganese was applied as the anode, molybdenum was the cathode and Ag/AgCl was the reference electrode. The anodic dissolution was investigated by linear polarization in molten NaCl-KCl system. Then potentiostatic electrolysis was carried out to produce pure ferromanganese from high carbon ferromanganese. The cathodic product was determined to be a mixture of manganese and iron by x-ray diffraction (XRD). The content of carbon in the product was analyzed by carbon and sulfur analyzer. The post-electrolysis anode was characterized by scanning electron microscope (SEM). The mechanism of the anode dissolution and the distribution of the main impurity of carbon and silicon after electrolysis were discussed.