This diploma thesis deals with the influence of parameters of copper electrowinning on specific energy consumption and current efficiency applied on pure electrolyte.
After giving a brief survey on copper hydrometallurgy, the theoretical principles of copper electrowinning are discussed, explaining especially the influence of different parameters on decomposition voltage, voltage drop, cell voltage and overvoltage. Additionally, the reasons for current efficiency losses are described. The temperatures at different positions in the electrolytic cell, which are already known from another diploma thesis, are reported.
In the experimental part, the influence of the parameters temperature, electrode spacing, current efficiency and electrolyte circulation rate on current density and specific energy consumption is investigated.
Except for the experimental series for electrolyte circulation rate, the other variables are not kept constant on observing one parameter. In this way, various curves are obtained for each parameter in order to seize the complex relations.
In case of investigating the circulation rate, the three other variables are kept constant.
Due to the pure electrolyte used in our experiments, current efficiency is amazingly high and consequently the required specific energy consumption is very low.