Lead chloride molten salt electrolysis

It was an adaptation of the Castner cell to sodium chloride for fused caustic electrolysis. A mixture of sodium chloride and other chlorides, molten at 620°C, was electroly2ed ia rectangular or oval cells heated only by the current. Several cells have been patented for the electrolysis of fused salt ia cells with molten lead cathodes (65). However, it is difficult to separate the lead from the sodium (see Electrochemical processing). 

The electrolysis Of fused alkali salts.—Many attempts have been made to prepare sodium directly by the electrolysis of the fused chloride, since that salt is by far the most abundant and the cheapest source of the metal. The high fusion temp. the strongly corrosive action of the molten chloride and the difficulty of separating the anodic and cathodic products, are the main difficulties which have been encountered in the production of sodium by the electrolysis of fused sodium chloride. Attention has been previously directed to C. E. Acker s process for the preparation of sodium, or rather a sodium-lead alloy, by the electrolysis of fused sodium chloride whereby sodium is produced at one electrode, and chlorine at the other but the process does not appear to have been commercially successful. In E. A. Ashcroft s abandoned process the fused chloride is electrolyzed in a double cell with a carbon anode, and a molten lead cathode. The molten lead-sodium alloy was transported to a second chamber, where it was made the anode in a bath of molten sodium hydroxide whereby sodium was deposited at the cathode. A. Matthiessen 12 electrolyzed a mixture of sodium chloride with half its weight of calcium chloride the addition of the chloride of the alkaline earth, said L. Grabau, hinders the formation of a subchloride. J. Stoerck recommended the addition of... 

The use of aqueous chloride electrolysis in comparison with molten salt systems has the disadvantage of producing a powdered lead cathode deposit in comparison with molten lead. The production of chlorine can be common to both systems but can be avoided in the aqueous system if iron leach solutions are used as the electrolyte, or proton permeable membranes are used to allow for a separate anolyte solution composition. No clear preference has emerged to date from the many process options examined. 

These facts would suggest that die electrolysis of molten alkali metal salts could lead to the inuoduction of mobile elecU ons which can diffuse rapidly through a melt, and any chemical reduction process resulting from a high chemical potential of the alkali metal could occur in the body of the melt, rather than being conhned to the cathode volume. This probably explains the failure of attempts to produce tire refractoty elements, such as titanium, by elecU olysis of a molten sodium chloride-titanium chloride melt, in which a metal dust is formed in the bulk of the elecU olyte. 

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