8. Chlorination of scrap metal

Production technology

Chlorine attack is generally easy once the reaction temperature has been reached. It is then self-sustaining, thanks to the exothermicity of the reaction. The various chlorides can be easily separated due to their extremely different boiling and sublimation temperatures (see figure 1 ).

Applications

This operation is used to recycle noble metals contained in alloys. In particular, it applies to tungsten carbide scrap and superalloys with a high cobalt, nickel, chromium, tungsten or molybdenum content.