Measurements in Intercell Bus Bar with Four Contact Points for Copper Electrowinning Plant

摘要

With the demand of refined copper, the popularity of hydrometallurgy for copper refining has been increasing in China. To improve energy efficiency and productivity in copper electrowinning (EW) process, an intercell bus bar with four contact points has been used in many plants. In order to evaluate its benefits, industrial tests were performed in a copper electrowinning plant and specific measurements including cell voltage, cell current, voltages between anode and cathode at different locations, changes in electrolytic solutions and temperature were obtained in a tankhouse during two production cycles of total twenty-five continuous days. Compared to conventional intercell bar, the benefits include: more stable cell voltage and cell current as well as an even distribution of operating current between anode and cathode. It is also observed that the temperature variations in the inter-cell bus bar with four contact points are less than that in the conventional intercell bar. These observations have resulted improvements in the testing cells and demonstrated clearly the potential of the intercell bus bar with four contact points for copper production with electrowinning process.