Study on Electrowinning of Cobalt by Cyclic Voltammetry Technique

Nowadays cobalt is mostly produced through the electrowinning process of sulfate solutions. Regarding to the competition between the precipitation of cobalt ions and evolution of hydrogen gas on the cathode surface during the reduction process in a sulfate bath, investigation on the mechanism of metal precipitation is of great importance. In the present work, study on the kinetics of cobalt electrowinning and the mechanism of the involved reactions have been carried out. The obtained results, confirm the mechanism of cobalt precipitation by depletion of hydroxides. The effects of temperature and scan rate parameters were studied on electrowinning of cobalt by cyclic voltammetry technique. The diffusion coefficient and rate constant of the reactions were measured and calculated by performed experiments.