Study On Preparation Of Cathode And Its Electrolytic Behavior In The Electrolytic Reduction Of Titanium Dioxide To Titanium

Titanium is being used more and more extensively in the field of aerospace, metallurgy, chemical industry and so on for its many good properties such as high specific strength, good resistance to elevated and low temperature and corrosion-resistant. But the high cost caused by current complicated production process limits its more extensive application. Therefore, a new titanium metallurgy method of short process, low power consumption, non-pollution is needed.This paper studied the process of the electrolytic reduction of titanium dioxide to titanium. In view of some key problems exiting in the electrolytic reduction process, the preparation of TiO₂ cathode and some elements affecting the electro-reduction were discussed in this paper.For the first time, the nature of TiO₂ cathode was optimized by putting carbon power into TiO₂. The result indicated that carbon power can increase the number of gas hole and the porosity of TiO₂ cathode, which is beneficial in the electro-reduction of titanium dioxide to titanium.Hardness, porosity of sintered TiO₂ cathode were studied by orthogonal experiment, which confirms the influence of confectioning pressure, quantity of carbon power and quantity of distilled water. The optical conditions of preparing TiO₂ cathode were gained: confectioning pressure being 100kgf/cm², quantity of carbon being 5%, distilled water not being put into TiO₂ cathode.The influence of the porosity, thickness, superficial area and quantity of carbon power of TiO₂ cathode on electrolytic reduction was studied. The results of SEM, XRD, oxygen content of the product and current efficiency indicate that increasing the porosity, reducing the thickness, increasing the superficial area and the quantity of carbon power can reduce the oxygen content os production and deoxidation is more complete.Besides, the influences of anode size, different molten salt and the use times of molten salt on electrolytic reduction were studied by the result of SEM, XRD, oxygen content of the product and current efficiency, which confirms the influencing regularity and lays a foundation for embedded study for the future.The optimized conditions were chosen and the high-purity titanium whose oxygen content is 0.41% was gained under such conditions.