Water modeling the solid oxide membrane electrolysis with rotating cathode process

The Kroll process for refining titanium is an expensive batch process which produces a final product that still requires intensive post processing to create usable titanium. A new process, Solid Oxide Membrane Electrolysis with Rotating Cathode (SOMERC) process is being explored. The SOMERC process is a continuous process that could produce large quantities of high quality titanium at a fraction of the cost of the Kroll process. This paper examines the fluid flow around the ingot in the SOMERC Process. A large shear between the ingot and surrounding fluid will create a fully-dense ingot instead of dendrites, because dendrites are undesirable. Using a camera, a plane of light and titanium dioxide particles, videos and pictures of the water were taken and analyzed to find how to create a large amount of shear between the ingot and the fluid. Out of the speeds tested, a rotation rate of 900Ê»/s for the ingot proved to create the most shear, and therefore the shear between the ingot and fluid increases with increasing rotation rate, making it more likely to suppress the formation of dendrites.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2004

Author dc:creator

• Kinney, Chris, 1982-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Adam Powell.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32729

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32729