Abstract
Ionic liquids, low temperature molten salts, have various advantages manifesting themselves as durable and environmentally friendly solvents. Their application is expanding into various fields including hydrometallurgy due to their unique properties such as non-volatility, inflammability, low toxicity, good ionic conductivity, and wide electrochemical potential window. This paper reviews previous literatures and our recent results adopting ionic liquids in extraction, synthesis and processing of metals with an emphasis on the electrolysis of active/light, rare earth, and platinum group metals. Because the research and development of ionic liquids in this area are still emerging, various, more fundamental approaches are expected to popularize ionic liquids in the metal manufacturing industry.
Highlights
There has been rapid development in electronic, informative, automotive and petrochemical industries in recent decades, and the depletion of underground metal resources has become more and more serious
Ionic liquids that exist as a liquid at room temperature are called room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs), and the number of currently known RTILs reaches about 106 [5,6]
Ionic liquids can be directly used as electrolyte for the electrowinning of dissolved metal ions because they have high ionic conductivity and wide potential windows enabling the electrolytic reduction of various metals
Summary
There has been rapid development in electronic, informative, automotive and petrochemical industries in recent decades, and the depletion of underground metal resources has become more and more serious. In the case of the steel making industry based on pyrometallurgy, efforts to reduce environmental issues such as exhaust gas, dust, slag, and waste water arising from the smelting process and to recover waste energy in the smelting process need to be expanded, in addition to the development of highly efficient smelting techniques for the treatment of low grade ores. The development of energy saving techniques is critical, in particular, for aluminum making industry considering the current extractive technology based on high temperature molten salt electrolysis. Ionic liquids have a variety of advantages manifesting themselves as durable and environmentally friendly solvents—so called, green solvents They have low vapor pressure, a non-flammable nature, and excellent chemical/electrochemical/thermal stability, which are favorable to long-term operation. This paper reviews previous literatures adopting ionic liquids in extraction, synthesis and processing of metals in the field of hydrometallurgy
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