The oxygen-ion conductor, the reducing agent, and the molten oxide slag containing electroactive matter were used as constituent of a galvanic cell. Metal was directly electroreduced from molten slag using a short-circuit galvanic cell. The following galvanic cell was assembled in the present experiment： graphite rod, [-O]Fe-C saturated ｜ZrO2 （MgO） ｜ Cu（1） ＋ （FeO）（slag） , and molybdenum wire. The FeO electroreduction reaction was studied through measuring short circuit current by controlling factors such as temperature, the FeO content in molten slags, and the external circuit resistance. An overall kinetics model was developed to describe the process of FeO electroreductiono It was found that the modeled curves were in good agreement with the experimental values. The new oxide reduction method in the metallurgy with controlled oxygen flow was proposed and the metallurgical theory with controlled oxygen flow was developed.
As a fundamental study on recovery of valuable metals from nonferrous metallurgical slags,electrical conductivity values of MO（MO=FeO,NiO）-containing CaO-MgO-SiO2-Al2O3 slag with a low basicity were measured at different temperatures using AC impedance spectroscopy.The result shows that the electrical conductivity increased from 1.4 S/m to 14.4 S/m with the increase of the temperature from 1 573 to 1 773 K and the content of MO which is less than 12% under the constant mass ratio of （CaO＋MgO） to （SiO2＋Al2O3） of 0.47.Moreover,the increase magnitude of the electrical conductivity was also promoted with the increase of the content of MO.The electrical conductivity of FeO-containing slags was close to that of NiO-containing slags when the content was less than 8%;however,it was obviously larger than that of NiO-containing slags when the content was 12%.The activation energy of the electrical conductivity decreased with the increase of MO content.
