Study On The Preparation Process And Mechanism Of Vanadium

Vanadium, a rare high melting-point metal of body-centered cubic structure is of good plasticity and the corrosion resistance at a low temperature. It has been wildly used in industries of iron and steel, aviation, energy, chemic industry, pharmacy etc. The complex manufacturing process and high production cost and serious environmental pollution of the traditional manustruring process have greatly limited its application.FFC-Cambridge process proposed by the University of Cambridge is a new technology for producing metals and their alloys. In the process the desired metal cations are reduced selectively at the cathode through the control of the electrode potential. Therefore, only metallic oxides take part in electrolytic reaction. It has the advantages of short manufacturing process and low cost as well as low pollution. It has the potential to take the place of the Kroll process.In this paper the preparation of vanadium from V2O3by FFC process was studied. The reduction process of V2O3and the component and morphology of obtained vanadium was studied from the aspects of the preparation of V2O3cathode, the size of the anode, electrolyte temperature, electrolyte voltage and electrolyte time. The best conditions were obtained as followed:20Mpa molding pressure,1100℃sintering temperature for4h, graphite crucible as anode. Through the study of electrolyte temperature, electrolyte voltage and time, some conclusions were drew as followed:under electrolyte voltage (2.9V), the granularity of crystal particles was reduced by increasing electrolytic temperature. X-ray (XRD) diffraction, Scanning electron microscope (SEM) and X-ray spectroscopy (EDS) of the reduction sample was analysed in different time. The reduction of V2O3to vanadium is proceeded step by step from the outlayer to the inner layer of the cathode pellet and from the high valence through the low valence oxide to metal vanadium.In this paper vanadium was refined from reduction product in molten salts.Three molten salts system were studied in the electrolytic refining process. No vanadium product was obtained because the vanadium pellet used as anode is of powder in nature and can not resist the madefaction and the erosion of the molten salts under the electric field. The anode vanadium pellet was dissolved in the molten salts in a short time in the refining process.