Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Indium Smelting into Ingots

zephler1 - 29-3-2015 at 07:40

About 6 kg of Indium metal, that was produced from the Electrowinning of an InCl3 solution was placed into a crucible. The crucible was heated at 200C for 2 hours. From this the dross was scraped off the top of the molten Indium and the Indium was poured into bars. However, only about 2kg of lovely Indium ingots were produced. The other 4kg or so has been is Dross or Indium Oxide. Can anyone give some tips or point me to some literature on how to reduce the amount of Dross formation during Indium smelting? I was expecting a small protective layer on the surface of the molten metal, but it seems that obviously most of the material was converted to dross instead of just the molten metal....please help!

Bert - 29-3-2015 at 08:50

Sounds like you needed an inert gas blanket to process the liquid metal?

A quick google search?

http://fiesta.bren.ucsb.edu/~dturney/port/papers/Kano_2008.p...

As Indium metal is now worth somewhere near US $800 kg? Perhaps sell it to a metal refining & production company...

http://buy.solder.com/99-9-Pure-Indium-Shot-Minimum-Purity-1...