Abstract:Rare earth electrolytic cell is the core equipment for the preparation of rare earth metals by molten salt electrolysis method, and it is of great significance to optimise the cell structure for the preparation of rare earths in the direction of high-efficiency and large-scale development of electrolysis process. In order to comprehensively and deeply understand the current research status of the flow field, electric field and temperature field of the rare earth electrolytic cell, four aspects of the current situation of anode and cathode plug-in rare earth electrolytic cell flow field, anode and cathode plug-in rare earth electrolytic cell electrothermal coupling field, and large-scale rare earth electrolytic cell and bottom liquid cathode structure rare earth electrolytic cell were overviewed. The development, design and structure optimization of rare earth electrolytic cell were summarized based on numerical simulation method, the simulation work that still needs to be improved or supplemented were put forward, and the future development direction of rare earth electrolytic cell were outlooked.