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A fundamental study on indium electrochemistry in molten NaCl-KCl eutectic: toward new technology development for indium secondary resources recycling

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Abstract

In this work, a fundamental study on the electrochemical behavior of indium on a molybdenum electrode in the molten NaCl-KCl eutectic system at 750 °C was carried out. A variety of transient electrochemical techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, chronopotentiometry, square wave voltammetry, and linear sweep voltammetry were utilized to clarify the redox mechanism of indium in the molten melt. The results showed that the reduction of In(III) to metallic In is a diffusion-controlled one-step process of reversibility. The diffusion coefficient of In(III) in the eutectic NaCl-KCl system at 750 °C was evaluated by cyclic voltammetry and chronopotentiometry, and the results obtained by the two electrochemical methods accord well with each other, as to be approximately 1.05×10−5 and 3.7×10−5 cm2/s, respectively. This study aims to provide a theoretical basis for the development of an efficient and cost-effective process for indium secondary resources recycling on the basis of molten salt electrochemistry.

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Data available on request from the authors.

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Funding

This work was supported by The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy (G202201), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51904003), Anhui Provincial Department of Education (2022AH050332), and Key Research and Development Plan of Anhui Province (2022n07020004).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, 243032, People’s Republic of China

    Kai Zhang

  2. School of Metallurgical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Hudong Road 59, Ma’anshan, Anhui Province, 243032, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Xu, Dingwu Xia, Jinwei Meng & Zhuo Zhao

  3. The State Key Laboratory of Refractories and Metallurgy, Wuhan University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, 430081, People’s Republic of China

    Liang Xu

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  1. Kai Zhang
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  5. Zhuo Zhao
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Contributions

Kai Zhang: methodology, validation, investigation, data curation, writing — original draft, and writing — review and editing. Liang Xu: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, data curation, writing — original draft, writing — review and editing, and funding acquisition. Dingwu Xia: methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, and data curation. Jinwei Meng: methodology, validation, investigation, and data curation. Zhuo Zhao: conceptualization, methodology, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing — review and editing, supervision, project administration, and funding acquisition.

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Correspondence to Liang Xu or Zhuo Zhao.

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Zhang, K., Xu, L., Xia, D. et al. A fundamental study on indium electrochemistry in molten NaCl-KCl eutectic: toward new technology development for indium secondary resources recycling. Ionics 29, 4379–4387 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11581-023-05145-1

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