Electro-gravimetric recovery of silver from aqueous solutions and its precursors

Abstract

ABSTRACT.A simple electrolytic cell was used for electrochemical recovery of silver from aqueous solutions containing 100 mg/L Ag(I). Two different sets of electrodes were applied to find the enhanced recovery of silver. Rocks and ores samples were processed through fire assay method and acid digestion. A set of electrodes comprised of stainless steel anode and aluminum cathode gave maximum recovery (96.5%) of silver. This simple, robust, environment friendly and highly sensitive method was effectively applied to various ores and rock samples. The developed method with slight modifications can also be applied for the recovery of other metals.

The Role of Electrochemistry and Electrochemical Technology in Environmental Protection, a review

“…Numerous research projects have recently focused on using electrochemical technology for environmental cleanup [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Toxic metals utilized in the extensively used electrodeposition (ED), electrowinning (EW), and electrorecovery (ER) processes are cathodically deposited during electrolytic procedures [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Also, hazardous organic molecules are electro-oxidized and degraded either directly on the anode surface or through oxidants produced on the anode or the cathode surface.…”

“…By utilizing insoluble anodes during electrowinning, various metals that are found in industrial wastewaters can be electro recovered [38 -49]. The feeding electrochemical cell and electrolyte are the metal-containing waste solutions [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30]. Metals recovered through electrolysis are equally pure (virgin) plating materials.…”