Preparation of Phosphorus by Carbothermal Reduction Mechanism in Vacuum

The purpose of this work was to investigated the carbothermic reaction of fluorapatite process by the means of thermodynamics analyses, XRD and element analysis, respectively. Thermodynamic calculations indicated that phosphorus can be prepared by heating the mixture of Ca5(PO4)3F2 and C at 1173K under the system pressure of 100Pa. CO cannot react with Ca5(PO4)3F2 in the carbothermic reduction process at 973-1873K and 100Pa. Experimental results demonstrated that phosphorus can be produced by the reaction between Ca5(PO4)3F2 and C, the main reaction phase is P2(g), CO(g), CaO and CaF2, and with increasing temperature, the greater degree of response. The best technology conditions, the molar ratio of Ca5(PO4)3F2 to C is 1:7.5 at 1723K for 1h when the system pressure was about 100Pa. This study to provide experimental evidence for preparation of phosphorus by carbothermal reaction of fluorapatite in vacuum.