Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Kimia - Tesis

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Browsing Pusat Pengajian Kejuruteraan Kimia - Tesis by Author "Daneskumar Manogaran"

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    Effects of process variables on tin yield and purity of electrolysis process: a case study in malaysia smelting corporation (msc)
    (2023-04-01)
    Daneskumar Manogaran
    Electrolysis is a process of chemical decomposition of organic and inorganic substances produced by passing an electric current through a liquid or solution containing ions. Electrolysis provides the ability to separate a pure metal from a variety of impurities in a single stage process, providing certain conditions are achieved, thus aiding in metal purification. MSC Electrolysis Plant’s production rate and quality of 99.99% tin (4N tin) is deteriorating over time. However, MSC tin purification through electrolysis is the only process that can produce the highest purity of marketable tin. Therefore, this process needs an optimization in terms of efficiency, yield, energy consumption and cost. This is to cope with the increasing stringent demand from customers. The methodology used in the project is the experiment of four key process variables in MSCEP. Study was conducted to find the optimum distance between electrodes, current density, cathode operating time, and pre-treatment of anode. The tin metal produced is weighed in industrial weigh scale and the metal purity is analysed in in-house laboratory using Optical Emission Spectrophotometry (OES), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and titration process. Based on the first experiment, it can be concluded that the ideal distance between the electrodes is 5 inches where the highest total crystal deposit of 538 kgs was produced. The study of the second variable shows that 54 A/m2 is the optimum level of current density for MSCEP process as it produced the highest tin crystal deposit of 511 kg with the total impurities content below the permissible limit. For the third study, 5 days is the optimum cathode operating time in MSCEP as it produced the highest rate of total tin crystal deposit per day which is 107.6 kg / day. For the final study, the pre-treatment of anodes shows that the average copper content in tin crystal deposit after the implementation of copper removal pre-treatment dropped to an average of 12 ppm per month compared to an average of above 30 ppm per month prior to the introduction of copper content reduction by pre-treatment of anodes.