Speakers: Antoine Allanore, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA; and James Yurko, Electrolytic Research Corporation, USA
Date and Time: Tuesday, March 13, 11:25 a.m.
Location: Dolphin Resort, Europe 5
Topic: Development of Electrometallurgical Processes for 21st Century Metal Extraction

The late 19th century development of electrometallurgy enabled the discovery of revolutionary metal processing methods, which are at the core of our technology-oriented societies (electrolytic extraction in molten salts for light and rare-earth metals and aqueous electrowinning for copper, zinc, nickel, etc...), or which proved to be necessary to improve metal sustainability (electric arc furnace for recycling). The 21st century challenges related to metal extraction, particularly environmental ones, have led to a reconsideration of electrochemical extraction processes.

This presentation will first briefly present some existing extraction methods, in particular electrometallurgical ones, pointing-out the advantages and issues related to the current state-of-the art. The second part of the talk will present how breakthrough electrochemical processes have recently been developed to adapt to environmental and energy constraints, taking the example of low- and high-temperature electrochemical extraction processes scaled-up for transition and light metals. Technical results related to metal production (Fe, Mn, Ti) and oxygen generation by molten oxide electrolysis will be presented in particular, to emphasize the key environmental and metallurgical advantages of electrochemical techniques. The experience gained developing and up-scaling these processes suggest that a paradigm change of commercial production of metals could potentially be achieved with their implementation