Experimental investigation and thermodynamic modelling of LiF-NdF3-DyF3 system

Electrolysis of molten fluorides is one of the promising methods for the recovery and recycling of rare earth metals from used magnets. Due to the dearth of phase equilibria data for molten fluoride systems, thermodynamic modelling of LiF-DyF3-NdF3 system using the CALPHAD approach was carried out. Gibbs energy modelling for LiF-NdF3 and LiF-DyF3 systems was performed using the constitutional data from literature. Ab initio calculations were used to obtain enthalpy of reaction of LiDyF4, an intermediate phase that is found to exist in the LiF-DyF3 system. Differential thermal analysis was carried out for selected compositions in the NdF3-DyF3 system, in order to determine liquidus and solidus temperatures. The Gibbs energy parameters for the limiting binaries determined in this work is used for modelling the Gibbs energy functions of equilibrium phases in the ternary system. Selected compositions of LiF-NdF3-DyF3 were subjected to DTA in order to validate the calculated phase temperatures involving melt.