Molten Salt Electrowinning of Metals and Materials: Opportunities and Challenges

Conventional metallurgical processes to produce metals involve carbothermal reduction of their compounds and suffer from massive carbon emissions. Electrowinning using aqueous electrolytes is a demonstrated approach to obtain many metals. However, aqueous electrolytes are not suitable to produce several classes of metals such as alkali, alkaline earth, refractory, rare earths, and actinides due to their high negative reduction potentials. Molten salt electrolysis is a commercially viable and feasible route for the production of these metals. The present chapter details on the molten salt electrowinning of alkali, alkaline earth, rare earths and refractory metals with a special focus on the efforts at CSIR CECRI in this niche area of science and technology.