Electrodes, and Operating Conditions

The dropping mercury electrode has been successfully applied up to —500 K and the hdme to 523 Conceivably, mercury film electrodes 

The problem of introducing solutes into melts may not always be inconsiderable. A number of entry-port systems have been described/ but the most elegant solution to the problem for fundamental studies may be anodic dissolution. Otherwise, the availability or ease of preparation of adequately anhydrous material can present serious difficulties.  

Once the principles of operating in a molten salt environment have been grasped, suitable extrapolations or interpolations of materials requirements and cell and equipment designs can be made between different systems. In bringing a molten salt process into commercial operation, unique materials problems requiring special solutions often limit its progress, but practically never prevent it. Thus, if a desired result may not be achieved for theoretical reasons in any alternative electrolyte, because of electrochemical instability, for example, then initial development costs and difficulties become inconsequential. Such has been the case with thermal batteries, sodium-sulfur batteries, molten fluoride nuclear reactors, and molten carbonate fuel 

Nitrite is particularly difficult to remove and is best avoided by using pure starting materials as well as limiting its production by working at low temperatures for short times, over restricted potential ranges vide infra). 

Since nitrite ions are produced cathodically during the reduction of nitrate ions and by thermal dissociative mechanisms, the greatest of caution is required in both the electrochemical and thermal treatments of these melts—matters which hitherto have received insufficient attention by a majority of workers. 

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