The performance of a 500 amp rotating cylinder electrode reactor. Part 3: Methods for the determination of mass transport data and the choice of reactor model

Methods for determining KlA (the product of mass transport coefficient and active cathode area) are critically discussed for the case of a pilot-scale rotating cylinder electrode reactor. The reactor operation involved cupric ion removal from a 0.5 M H2SO4 solution at 35°C via deposition of copper powder onto a cathode of diameter 0.25 m and length 0.254 m, having a projected area of 0.200 m2, which was rotated at 750 rev. min−1. Limiting current, mass transport correlation and conversion data are considered; it is shown that conversion data provided the most satisfactory route towards KlA determinations. Five design equations are considered. The cell is treated as a plug flow reactor (PFR) or a continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) in the single pass mode. In the batch recycle mode of operation, PFR, CSTR and simple batch models are considered. It is seen that the reactor is best described by a CSTR model, which leads to reasonable agreement between averaged KlA values calculated from single pass and batch recycle data.