Experimental Study of Zinc Powder Preparation by Electrochemical Method

Abstract

This research has been done to study and diagnose operational factors and conditions affecting the zinc powder specification and efficient performance of the electrochemical process .The selection of the optimal conditions for the powder preparation at an average particle size up to 100 μm will be investigated with high productivity and efficiency. The results indicated that the adoption of electrochemical technique was suitable for obtaining zinc powder at average particle size less than of 100μm directly by 77.8% of the total amount prepared, purity of 99.2% and current efficiency (64.9%). The optimal conditions were through using an electrode cathode of stainless steel, zinc as an anode in alkaline medium of sodium hydroxide (200 g/l), zinc ions concentration up to (6 g/l), current density 0.19 amp/cm2 on the cathode electrode, and electrochemical deposition time of (2 hrs.). Also empirical relations obtained by correlating the effective parameters using non-linear regression with correlation coefficients (0.97 and 0.92) and the relation s are: Current efficiency (Y1) = - 884.65 - 2.5 X1 -1351.2 X1X2 + 55.62 X1X3 -0.04 X12 +12945.18 X2 -1715.78 X2X3 + .2.888 X22 - 0.96X3 -0.39X32, R= 0. 97 Productivity (Y2) = 6225.1 + 174.3 X1 + 3442.8 X1X2 - 196.6 X1 X3 - 58189.7 X2 + 12689.7 X2 X3 - 1704.0 X2 2 - 1224.7 X3 -2.4 X3 2 , R= 0. 92