Electrowinning cell
AssigneeGreengold Engineering Pty Ltd
InventorMalcolm Roy Paterson
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An electrowinning cell for extracting metals from an electrolyte solution, the electrowinning cell comprising a housing, a solution inlet, a solution outlet, a plurality of anodes, a plurality of cathodes and a product outlet, wherein at least one anode is substantially impermeable and configured to maintain a gap between a lower edge of the anode and the housing, so that fluid flow of solution is directed below the anode, and wherein at least one cathode is secured at a lower edge to the housing to prevent fluid flow below the lower edge of the cathode.
Claims22
An electrowinning cell for extracting metals from an electrolyte solution, the electrowinning cell comprising a housing, a solution inlet, a solution outlet, a plurality of anodes, a plurality of cathodes for metal deposition and a product outlet, wherein at least one anode is impermeable and configured to permit fluid flow of a solution along a fluid flow path through the electrowinning cell, a first portion of the fluid flow path extending between a lower edge of each anode and the housing, so that solution passing from the inlet to the outlet is directed below each anode,
- wherein said plurality of cathodes are permeable when free of metal deposition;
- and
- wherein a second portion of the fluid flow path for the solution passes either through a cathode or over a cathode dependent on the permeability of said cathode, said permeability of said cathode being dependent on degree of metal deposition on each cathode.
An electrowinning cell for use in a gold or silver recovery circuit, the electrowinning cell comprising a housing, a solution inlet, a solution outlet, a plurality of anodes, a plurality of cathodes for metal deposition, a product outlet and a fluid flow path for a solution through the electrowinning cell, wherein at least one anode is configured to maintain a gap between a lower edge of the anode and the housing, so that a first portion of the fluid flow path for the solution is directed below the anode, wherein at least one cathode is secured at a lower edge to the housing to prevent fluid flow below the lower edge of the cathode;
- wherein said plurality of cathodes are permeable when free of metal deposition;
- and
- wherein a second portion of the fluid flow path for the solution passes either through a cathode or over a cathode dependent on the permeability of said cathode, said permeability of said cathode being dependent on degree of metal deposition on each cathode.
An arrangement of electrowinning cells for extracting metals from an electrolyte solution, wherein each electrowinning cell comprises:
- a housing, a solution inlet, a solution outlet, a plurality of anodes, a plurality of cathodes and a product outlet, wherein each anode is configured to maintain a gap between a lower edge of the anode and the housing, so that at least a portion of fluid flow of solution is directed below the anode, and wherein at least one cathode is secured at a lower edge to the housing to prevent fluid flow below the lower edge of the cathode;
- wherein the arrangement comprises electrowinning cells connected to one another in series, so that fluid flow of solution is directed from a first cell, via subsequent downstream cells to a final cell, and wherein the cells are arranged with different degrees of anode permeability.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.