1999 TMS Annual Meeting: Short Course Description

The following short course is sponsored by The Minerals, Metals & Materials Society (TMS) and will be offered during the 1999 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition being held in San Diego, California, February 28-March 4, 1999, at the San Diego Convention Center.

Molten Salts: Bath Chemistry and Process Design in Aluminum, Magnesium, & Lithium

ABOUT THE PRESENTERS

Donald R. Sadoway is a professor of materials chemistry in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He obtained a BASc in engineering science, a MASc in chemical metallurgy, and a PhD in chemical metallurgy, all from the University of Toronto. After a year of post-doctoral study at MIT as a NATO Fellow, Dr. Sadoway joined the faculty in 1978. The author of over 80 scientific papers and holder of 11 U.S. patents, his principal research interests are high-temperature physical chemistry, electrochemical processes in molten salts and cryogenic liquids, and rechargeable lithium solid polymer batteries. In 1995 he was named a MacVicar Faculty Fellow, MIT's highest award for excellence in undergraduate education.

Georges J. Kipouros was educated at the National Technical University of Athens (Dipl Eng) and the University of Toronto (MASc and PhD). Before joining the faculty of Dalhousie University (formerly Technical University of Nova Scotia) in 1989, where he is presently a professor and department head of the Mining and Metallurgical Engineering Department, he was a senior research scientist at the General Motors Research Laboratories in Warren, Michigan. Prior to that, Dr. Kipouros served as a post-doctoral research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

• Date: Saturday, February 27, 1999
• Time: 8:30 a.m.-5:00 p.m.
• Fees: $425 Member; $510 Nonmember

• Test Procedures and Results
• Cathode Failures/Pot Repair
• Retrofit and New Trends
• Spent Potlining

Course Overview: Molten salts are important in a wide variety of industrial applications.

• Fused salt electrolysis is used extensively in the primary extraction of metals (electrowinning) including aluminum, magnesium, lithium and lanthanides.
• Molten salts are important in certain embodiments of fuel cell technology, as, for example, in the molten carbonate fuel cell.
• Molten salts are used as fluxes in the electroslag welding of titanium and other reactive metals.
• Beyond this, it is the opinion of the presenters that molten salts have enormous potential as media for environmentally sound new processes for metal production and for treatment of waste from the metallurgical and the chemical process industries.

The course begins with a comprehensive overview of the field of molten salts including resources in the literature, databases, etc. Then, using as case studies the electrolytic production of aluminum (Hall-Heroult), magnesium (anhydrous), and lithium, the course presents the physical and chemical properties of molten salts and discusses how to tailor bath chemistry in order to meet the requirements of process design. The course ends with a clinic, i.e. an open forum in which the instructors field questions from the participants. A complete set of notes along with an exhaustive bibliography will be provided.