Results of leaching and electrowinning tests suggest that thereis a possibility of effective integrated leaching electrowinning,if a proper combination of Fe3+, Fe2+, Cu2+, Cu+and pH isutilized. It can be seen that the high acid concentration, lowFe3+concentration combination can be utilized for integratedFigleaching-electrowinning. More investigation is needed to deter-mine appropriate solution species concentrations.Integrated leaching-electrowinning experiments were also per-formed using chalcopyrite ore following the procedures discussedpreviously. Initially, 6.3 gram of cupric chloride was added in theform of chloride salt in order to simulate a circulating leachingsolution. As the electrolysis and leaching occurred using the samerecirculated electrolyte through the leaching column and elec-trowinning cell, the copper production at the cathode exceeded theinitial copper amount after 6 days. When the test was completedafter 15 days, it is estimated that more than 50% of the copper inthe ore was dissolved and recovered by electrodeposition.
Control Surface morphology of electrodeposits is greatly affected bythe parameters such as substrate orientation and initial rough-ness, density and distribution of active nucleation sites, nucleationand growth, impurity concentrations, and experimental conditions[28–30]. Deposit roughness can lead to increased product impu-rity levels and short-circuiting. Rough deposits can trap solutionand particles into the deposit, thereby increasing product impu-rity levels, which increases product rejection rates and productivity[28–30]. In addition, rough deposits are associated with unde-sirable localized growth. If local growth feature size exceeds theseparation between cathodes and anodes, short-circuiting occurs.Short-circuiting creates current inefficiency and wastes power.Thus, electrodeposit smoothing using additives and mass transportcontrol is important to sustainable electrometallurgy.