A comparative study of electrochemical reactor configurations for the decomposition of copper cyanide effuent

Abstract

An electrochemical reactor packed with stainless steel fibres was used to oxidize a complexed copper cyanide solution. The reactor reduced the cyanide content from over 2000 p.p.m. to less than 100 p.p.m. in 4h. The energy consumption (kWh (kg CN⁻)⁻¹) for a bipolar setup was larger than for the parallel setup. An analog circuit analysis qualitatively agrees with the experimental results.