I worked some years ago with another electrolytic cell the couldn reach PPM levels for metals. What has changed?
Many electrolytic cells have been proposed for metal recovery over the past two decades. They have been used mostly as concentrators where further stages of treatment are required to remove all the metal in the solution. The most common configurations include parallel flat plate cathodes, reticulated cathodes, and high surface area cathodes. Various cell designs were developed to minimize the mass transport limits and reduce the equipment footprint and costs. Some of the most common cells include the carbon particle packed bed (ER cell); fluidized bed beads within electrodes (Chemelec cell); vertical metal or carbon foam electrodes (Retec cell); and various cylindrical rotating cathodes (Eco-Cell). Unfortunately, the performance of these conventional electrochemical cells is limited at low metal ion concentrations. While some of these cells can be effective down to metal ion concentration levels of around 50 – 150 PPM, effluent discharge levels are typically less than 5 PPM and often b
