Sustainable Mining and Metallurgy

The study aims at better controlling the purity of metallic zinc by improving from its upstream: modificiation of zinc electrolytic anode plate from impurity removal and alloy optimization, and compared the improved anode with the conventional Pb-Ag anode in terms of their physical and chemical performance. During the experiment, after analyzing the reduction potential of various elements in electro-chemical reactions, proper amounts of additives were dosed during the casting process of zinc anode, to form stable intermetallic compounds together with Fe and Cd in order to lower the reduction potential of Fe and Cd, prevent them from oxidation on the anode sheet. After analyzing the effect of various elements on Pb base and metallurgical performance, Ag, Ca, Sr, RE, etc. were chosen as the additives to improve the performance of the anode alloy. The improved anode sheets have shown notable increase in tensile strength, mild increase in hardness, and limited decrease in plasticity. Compared with the product zinc produced with conventional Pb-Ag anodes, the levels of various impurities of product zinc produced with the new node are lower, and the purity of the product zinc has increased markedly.