Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Electrolysis of Copper Sulfate (Electrodes)

K12Chemistry - 6-1-2013 at 09:14

I am going to electrolyse copper sulfate to get copper metal and sulfuric acid. First time I used carbon and copper electrodes and it worked fine except the carbon electrode eroded a lot and I had a significant amount of impurities in the sulfuric acid. This time I have a small piece of gold and silver. Will the silver work in the electrolysis? I know that iron electrodes definitely don't work because it makes FeSO4. So I don't want to risk losing the gold so will silver work or will it dissolve or what?

Thanks,
K12

sankalpmittal - 13-1-2013 at 22:58

Quote: Originally posted by K12Chemistry  
I am going to electrolyse copper sulfate to get copper metal and sulfuric acid. First time I used carbon and copper electrodes and it worked fine except the carbon electrode eroded a lot and I had a significant amount of impurities in the sulfuric acid. This time I have a small piece of gold and silver. Will the silver work in the electrolysis? I know that iron electrodes definitely don't work because it makes FeSO4. So I don't want to risk losing the gold so will silver work or will it dissolve or what?

Thanks,
K12


Probably , silver being low in electrochemical series will be discharged first...

IanCaio - 14-1-2013 at 12:37

I tryied carbon once, but since I used those compass tips I had to change it from time to time, too much trouble, I didnt even finish electrolysing everything.
Thing is, apart from carbon and platin, theres lead oxide electrodes that would work on this electrolysis, but they are really messy and toxic, so I recomend you dont even try it.

If theres another alternative, cheaper then platin I would like to know too, because the only reason I'm not trying this experiment again is because I dont want to bother having to change the electrodes everytime and cleaning the solution because of the carbon eroding.