Electrolytic Reduction of a Powder-Molded SiO[sub 2] Pellet in Molten CaCl[sub 2] and Acceleration of Reduction by Si Addition to the Pellet

A porous contacting electrode was prepared by winding a Mo wire around a porous pellet. X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) results confirmed that is reduced to Si at 1.00 and (vs ) in molten at and that the reduction rate is faster at more negative potential. A comparison on the basis of the amount of reduced in reveals that the reduction rate for a dense plate is faster than that for a porous pellet. However, reduction is greatly accelerated by mixing Si into the as a conductive additive. At a Si content of , the reduction rate at exceeds that for the dense plate. SEM observations show that the morphology of the Si produced changes from columnar to plate-like by combining the sides of Si columns with the addition of Si.