Mesh Cathode- Highly useful for producing wires

The objective of this work is to produce electrolytic Copper powders by electrorefining and electrowinning techniques in a new cathode basket is the aim of this work. Different cathode materials such as Copper, Aluminum and Stainless steel in the form of baskets were subjected to pure lead anodes for electrowinning process and pure or industrial Copper anode plates for electrorefining process. It was observed that Aluminum cathode basket is the most preferable basket material for deposition of Copper powder using both electrowinning and electrorefining techniques. Major drawback of Aluminum basket is the contamination of Copper powder with Aluminum after a long period of electrolysis process. As per the indication from scanning electron microscope analysis, pure and fine Copper powders with dispersive shapes from electrorefining process and dendritic shape from electrowinning process were obtained.

 Copper and its alloys are highly useful due to various properties including high thermal conductivity and high electrical conductivity. It also offers ease of casting, rolling, extrusion and drawing to produce tubing, wire and strip. It has low corrosion rate of copper when used for food preparation. It has high aesthetic appeal, excellent alloying characteristics and low toxicity to humans. Copper is used for making ornaments, coinage, tools and pots for cooking. Copper and brass, a copper-zinc alloy is used to make ornaments. Copper is highly used in an electrical conductor and about 50% of the current demand is for electrical uses. Copper has a very high electrical conductivity per unit volume and can be drawn readily into single or multifilament wires bent readily and repeatedly without excessive work hardening. Copper is readily tinned and has good soldering characteristics. It has resistance to corrosion at contact points.

Wires can be produced from copper mesh cathodes. An admiralty brass is an alloy with 71% copper, 28% zinc, and 0.75-1.0% impurities has resistance to salt water corrosion therefore is extensively used in ships. Fire-refined copper is used for noncritical applications such as bar stock, water tubing and ingots for alloying. Copper is produced by electrorefining or electrowinning techniques for use in electrical applications. All copper produced from ore receives an electrolytic treatment at some stage via electrorefining from impure anodes or electrowinning from leach or solvent extraction liquors. Electrorefining produces the majority of cathode copper ca. 95% as opposed to ca. 5% from electrowinning. 

The electrorefining process eliminates unwanted impurities. Cathode copper has purity greater than 99.9% wt Cu, with less than 0.005% total metallic impurities. Electrorefining process separates valuable impurities which can be recovered in other processes. The main technical factors in electrorefining are the cathode purity, the production rate and the specific energy consumption. The anode quality, electrolyte conditions and cathode current density affect these factors. The process for electrorefining copper is typical of those carried out in aqueous solution. The electrolyte is copper sulfate (0.7 molar) and sulfuric acid (2 molar). Metals that are likely to be found as impurities are considered in order to see how copper is purified. Ag, Au and Pt are noble than copper and therefore will not dissolve anodically but will be found as metals in the anode slime.