Electrochemical Formation of Dy and Nd Alloys Using Liquid Metal Electrodes in Molten LiCl-KCl Systems

We proposed new separation and recovery process for RE metals from Nd magnet scraps using molten salt electrolysis and an alloy diaphragm. This new process was first applied to chloride melts, and the separation of Dy and Nd were investigated using Ni cathodic electrodes in molten LiCl-KCl-DyCl 3 -NdCl 3 systems. The highest mass ratio of Dy/Nd in Dy-Nd-Ni alloy samples was found to be 72. We focused on the liquid metals as the alloy diaphragms. Liquid metals have higher diffusion rates of elements than those of solid metals during the electrolysis. In this work, Bi, Sn and Zn electrodes were used as liquid metal electrodes. The alloy samples were prepared by potentiostatic electrolysis using liquid Bi, Sn and Zn electrodes in molten LiCl-KCl added DyCl 3 (0.50 mol%) and NdCl 3 (0.50 mol%) at 723 K.