METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR SEPARATING AND RECOVERING GALLIUM FROM SCRAP CONTAINING GALLIUM

摘要

PURPOSE:To recover high-purity metallic gallium simply and easily at low cost, by adding scrap contg. gallium to a melted chloride bath and blowing gaseous chlorine thereinto and melting it as chloride and thereafter electrolyzing the above-mentioned melted bath. CONSTITUTION:A melted chloride bath 11 contg. gallium chloride or low b.p.- chloride as an essential component is stored in a melting tank 10 provided with an agitator 14 and a heater 16 or the like. Scrap contg. gallium is charged into this melted bath 11 from a hopper 17. Then gaseous chlorine is blown into the melted bath 11 through a feed pipe 15 thereof and the temp. not less than m.p. of the melted bath 11. Thereby the scrap component is melted as chloride. This melted bath 11 is flowed into an electrolytic cell 20 via an overflow pipe 12 and electrolyzed by using an anode 21 consisting of graphite and a cathode 22 consisting of stainless steel. Thereby metallic gallium 26 is recovered and also the temp. of the bath is held at 130-500 deg.C and volatilized arsenic chloride is recovered in a condenser 24 via a rectifier 23 and produced gaseous chlorine is returned to a dissolving process and can be used.