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Electrorefining of high purity manganese

University of British Columbia

Manganese is an important industrial metal used as an additive for production of various steels, non-ferrous alloys, electronic components and special chemicals. The traditional electrowinning process is not suitable for the production of high-purity manganese. Therefore, a novel ion exchange - electrorefining process for production of high-purity manganese is proposed to solve the problems. The ammonium chloride – manganese chloride electrolyte was selected as the most promising for refining. The physical properties of the electrolyte were first studied. The density increases when increasing concentrations of the ammonium chloride and manganese chloride. The maximum electrical conductivity is obtained with high concentrations of ammonium chloride and high temperature. Viscosity is minimized by high temperature and by low concentrations of manganese chloride. The electrorefining process introduces impurities into the anolyte from the dissolving anode. The purification of the electrolyte by cementation and ion exchange were investigated. This thesis reports the uptake of copper, nickel, cobalt, cadmium, zinc and manganese from manganese chloride solution onto the chelating resin Lewatit® MDS TP220 and Purolite S930Plus in batch and column experiments. The results demonstrate the ability for Lewatit® MDS TP220 to remove contaminants to an extent satisfying the quality criteria required for electrorefining. However, cementation of impurities by manganese powder and ion exchange with Purolite S930Plus are not suitable for purification to satisfy the quality criteria. In the electrorefining process, the individual and synergistic effects of selected impurities on manganese deposit quality were first investigated. The purity of manganese deposit did not change significantly in the presence of impurities. An addition of 0.15–5.0 mg/l Zn²⁺ to the catholyte increases the cathodic current efficiency. The parameters of current density, deposition time, and cathode usage frequency were investigated. Current density, deposition time and cathode usage frequency could affect current efficiency, specific energy consumption and surface morphology. With increasing the current density, the cathodic current efficiency first increased, reached a maximum value and then decreased. With increasing deposition time from 24 hours to 48 hours, the manganese current efficiency decreased and the deposit became more dendritic. The more times the cathode was used, the lower the current efficiency.

Text

2016-10-14

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/59447

Materials Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/