Vol. 323 No. 3 (2013): Химия

Electrolytic production of titanium powders in fluoride fusions

The authors have carried out a brief overview of industrial techniques for preparing titanium powders. The paper introduces the disadvantages of the existing industrial chloride techniques for preparing titanium. The necessity to develop a fundamentally new fluoride technique for producing titanium powders from low-temperature fluoride fusions was proved. The article introduces the technique of preparing fluoride fusions applying lithium and sodium fluoride hydrofluorination by anhydrous hydrogen fluoride; the latter is extracted at potassium hydrofluoride decomposition. The authors describe the processes occurring at electrolytic production of titanium powders from fluoride fusions using titanium tetrafluoride as a consumable agent. As titanium deposition potential is much lower than the same values of potential for fluoride salts of fluoride eutectic titanium is extracted with high yield. The paper describes the scheme of the laboratory unit for electrolysis and the sequence of cathode deposit production. The dependence of cathodic current density influence on titanium current yield was studied; the optimal conditions for electrolysis were selected. The principle elements of the electrolytic unit, cathode appearance with the deposit formed and separate deposit were introduced. The paper demonstrates the experimental results on titanium electrolytic preparing; the current yield is not less than 93 %. The chemical analysis of titanium powder prepared by the technique proposed is introduced; the admixture content in it does not exceed 0,1 wt. %. Powders prepared by the fluoride technique contain far less quantity of impurities than titanium sponge produced by the industrial chloride technique.

Keywords:

fluoride fusion, electrolysis, fluorine, dioxide of titanium, tetrafluoride of titanium, impurity fluoride, electrolyzer, processes on cathode, processes on anode

Authors:

V. A. Karelin

A. N. Strashko

A. V. Dubrovin