China Nonferrous Metallurgy

At present, rare earth molten salt electrolysis is one of the main industrial production methods for producing rare earth metals, and the insulating layer of the electrolytic cell is one of the important conditions that affect the electrolytic temperature. An enterprise 8 kA in Ganzhou rare earth electrolytic cell as the research object, using COMSOL software to carry on the simulation, the temperature field and electric field under different thermal insulation layer thicknesses was studied to obtain the distribution of temperature field and thermal field of aluminum reduction cells. The results showed that the temperature difference between the insulation layer and the graphite crucible wall during the electrolytic process of the electrolytic cell was much greater than that of the graphite crucible wall, indicating that the insulation layer played a major role in the thermal insulation during the electrolytic process of the electrolytic cell; with the increase of the insulation layer thickness, the temperature in the electrolytic region increased gradually, the temperature gradient decreased gradually, and the temperature field distribution was more uniform; the current density on the cathode surface of the electrolytic cell increased firstly and then decreased; when the thickness of the insulation layer was 78mm, the current density on the cathode surface reached the maximum value, i.e., 3.568×104^A/m²; the higher the current density on the cathode surface, the higher the electrolytic efficiency of the electrolytic cell. Combined with the distribution of electric field and temperature field, the electrolysis efficiency of electrolytic cell was the highest when the thickness of insulation layer was 78mm.