Advances in Understanding Metal Electrolysis Processes
A special issue of Metals (ISSN 2075-4701). This special issue belongs to the section "Extractive Metallurgy".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 June 2022) | Viewed by 30961
Special Issue Editors
Interests: process technology; metals; recycling; purification; alloying; WEEE; spent batteries; critical materials; circular economy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: electrochemistry; electrochemical deposition of metals; underpotential deposition and alloy formation; metal deposition from nonaqueous electrolytes; metal recycling; nanostructured materials; electrometallurgy; electrochemical engineering; composite materials
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
The field of metal electrolysis is wide-ranging, from metals production and refinement to galvanic coatings. Even for commodity metals like Cu, Ni, Zn, Pb, Al, Mg many open questions and unresolved issues remain connected to the process, the electrochemical mechanisms and their impact on the efficiency and quality. More and more complex recycling alloys needed to be handled and are subjects of widespread research. Emphases on improvements in energy yields, environmental compatibility and technical feasibility will certainly result in interesting publications.
In this special issue, a further focus is placed on rare metals which as well as their alloys continue to be in high demand due to their ongoing and potential applications in advanced technologies like medical, electronics, and aerospace industries.
The electrodeposition of metals and alloys has, for some time, been a very important approach to the production and recycling of transition metals and rare-earth elements. However, there is a need for technological improvements based on a better understanding of the processes of individual-metal electrodeposition and dissolution. Improving the systematic understanding of electrodeposition processes taking place on the working (cathode) and counter (anode) electrodes during electrolysis is critical for achieving optimizations in these production processes. Since a great majority of the transition metals and rare-earth elements have extremely negative standard potentials in aqueous electrolytes, only nonaqueous ones can be used in their electrodeposition. Finding new and enhancing existing electrolyte options among ionic liquids, molten salts, and deep eutectic solvents (DES) is an additional avenue for improvement. Although not all of their complexities have been completely elucidated, studies of electrochemical metals and alloy deposition and dissolution from these electrolytes have yielded steady progress in understanding and applications. An example that is in line with this progress is a study of underpotential deposition from low-temperature molten salts that elaborates on the methods to synthesize transient metal alloys in thermal conditions several hundred degrees lower than those demanded by their phase diagram. Pushing forward the evolution of these and similar solutions will continue to be of considerable importance.
Prof. Dr. Bernd Friedrich
Prof. Dr. Jovan N. Jovićević
Guest Editors
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Keywords
- Electrodeposition
- Electrolytes (aqueous electrolytes, ionic liquids, molten salts, deep eutectic solvents (DES))
- Coatings
- Metals
- Rare-earth elements
- Alloys
- Intermetallics
- Metal powders
- Composites
- Recycling
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