China Nonferrous Metallurgy

In the electrolytic process of rare earth molten salt, different electrification modes have different effects on the physical fields in the cell, which will also have a certain impact on the electrolytic efficiency of the cell. In this paper, the 8kA rare earth electrolytic cell of an enterprise is taken as the prototype, through the thermoelectric coupling module of Comsol, the single-side and multi-side power-on mode and the change of the internal parameters of electrolytic cell under the distribution of different positions of the electrified copper plate are studied to find the most suitable power-on mode. The purpose of this study is to provide reference for structure optimization of rare earth electrolytic cell. The results show that：when only the electrolytic efficiency is considered, the median distribution of the four sides of the conductive plate is the optimal structure, and the current density in the electrolytic cell is the highest, the electric energy loss is the lowest, and the electrolytic effect is the best. Considering the manufacturing cost and operability, the single-side median distribution of the conductive plate is the optimal solution. The electrolytic cell with this design has higher electrolytic efficiency and leaves more room for operation. The other distributions have drawbacks and need to be further better.