Thermodynamic Analysis and Experiments on Vacuum Separation of Sn‐Sb Alloy

In this study, the saturated vapor pressures of tin (Sn) and antimony (Sb), the separation coefficient s and the vapor-liquid phase equilibrium of Sn-Sb alloy were theoretically analyzed, which demonstrate that it is possible to separate Sn and Sb by vacuum distillation. The process parameters of vacuum distillation, including the distillation temperature, distillation time and alloy mass (thickness of raw materials) on the direct yield of Sn and the content of Sn in liquid phase were investigated by using single factor experiments. The preliminary results show that the direct yield and the content of Sn are 98.77 wt.% and 96.01% with the optimized distillation conditions of a distillation temperature of 1473 K, a distillation time for 45 min and a Sn-Sb alloy mass of 125 g (thickness of 8mm). The distillation parameters in the study provide effective and convenient conditions on separation of Sn-Sb alloy.