A Novel Oxygen Evolution Anode for Electrowinning of Non-ferrous Metals

This paper presents a novel anode for oxygen evolution in acidic aqueous solutions to produce non-ferrous metals by electrowinning. The method to prepare the anode was thermal decomposition of a precursor solution, and the obtained anode consisted of oxide catalytic layers formed on a titanium substrate, in which the catalytic layer contains nano-oxide particles other than iridium oxide as the active component. The oxygen evolution potential was much lower than commercially available coated titanium anodes using iridium oxide so that the cell voltage with using the novel anode in the electrowinning cells was much reduced.