OPTIMIZATION OF GLUE AND THIOUREA CONSUMPTIONS IN THE ELECTROLYTE OF COPPER REFINING

Thiourea and glue are the main organic additives that are used in electrorefining of copper. They produce smooth and hard deposit layer of copper on cathode and improve the cathode quality and hence prevent short circuiting in the electrical onnections. Optimizing the consumption of these additives is of greatest importance since their high concentration is not only uneconomical but also has the adverse effect. In this investigation, the consumptions of these are optimized using several experiments and exact measurement of the parameters involved. The results of the experiments show that the optimum glue and thiourea consumption for a current density of 280 A/m2 are 65 and 70 g/tonCu respectively. For a current density of 300 A/m2 these figures are 75 g/tonCu for glue and 70 g/tonCu for thiourea.