Study of electrical conductivity for electrolytes of electrowinning and electrorefining processes

Although a number of studies have been reported on the electrical conductivities of sulphate electrolytes for electrowinning and electrorefining processes, very few have focused on the optimization of these different effective factors. In this study, a design of experiment (DOE) technique, the Taguchi method, has been used to optimize four main effective factors (temperature of electrolyte, sulphuric acid concentration, metal ion concentration, impurity concentration) on electrical conductivity of sulphate solutions. The percentage contributions of these effective factors and their ranking have been revealed. Sulphuric acid concentration is the main effective factor on electrical conductivity of electrolyte while the temperature of electrolyte is in the second important factor.