Liquid zinc assisted electro-extraction of molybdenum

Abstract

• Co-deposition of Mo and Zn were investigated which lead Mo ions to deposit under a less cathodic potential. • Electrolytic cell was designed utilizing liquid zinc as cathode arranged according to the density. • Pure molybdenum was obtained by removing zinc in Zn-Mo alloy, where Zn-Mo alloy was produced through liquid zinc assisted electro-extraction. Improvements of the direct electro-desulfurization of molybdenum disulfide in NaCl-KCl eutectic molten salt by employing a liquid zinc electrode was studied in this work. According to the previous studies, one of the rate controlling step of the MoS 2 desulfurization process is the sulfur ions’ diffusion through solid MoS 2 pellet, and a decreasing reaction rate is considered to result from the poor conductivity between the loosely connected partial reduced molybdenum particles. Based on these facts, liquid zinc electrode, along with a graphite crucible as the container, was employed to collect the reduced molybdenum particles as long as keep providing a fresh three-phase interline (3PI) as the current collector. Transient electrochemical technologies were introduced to study the electrochemical behavior of molybdenum ions with and without the appearance of zinc ions. Zn-Mo alloy was obtained through the potentiostatic electrolysis process, and molybdenum powders mainly sank into the bottom of liquid zinc due to the gravity. Metallic molybdenum shall be obtained by distilling the electrolysis product.