Numerical simulation of multiphase flow in 6 kA neodymium electrolytic cell

The flow field of air bubbles and electrolytes in the rare earth electrolytic cells is of great significance to ion concentration distribution, temperature distribution and the dissolution of oxide particles, and determines the quantity of products. In this paper, a cylindrical neodymium electrolysis cell with an anodic current density of 6 kA was taken as the prototype, and two-dimensional and three-dimensional mathematical models were established, respectively. The ANSYS-FLUENT software was used to solve the models. The results show that the flow process at the anodal gap and outboard of the carbon anode not be simulated by the two-dimensional model, while the three-dimensional model can accurately reflect the flow characteristic in the actual electrolytic cell. A nonuniform polar distance geometric model was built based on the real rare earth electrolyzer and the flow process was also simulated. The results show that the main vortices between the cathode and anode deviate toward the cathode and the bottom of the electrolytic cell with the increase of polar distance. Although the change in velocity is tiny, differences in swirl intensity within the electrolyte will lead to the deviation of rare earth metals. the degree of which increases with the anode distance ratio. The penetration depth of the anode bubble flow decreases with increasing polar distance.