Energy consumption of direct current galvanostatic zinc removal from viscose production wastewater

The work provided information on the energy consumption E e by direct current galvanostatic separation of zinc from ZnSO 4 solutions under conditions close to the electrodeposition of zinc from viscose production wastewaters. The E e values were displayed depending on the corresponding values of current densities i and electrical conductivities of solutions κ in the form of 3D diagrams. The diagrams showed that E e grew significantly with increasing i , with a significant influence of κ . In the analysis of the present processes and other desirable directions of research, both previous findings from polarographic/voltammetric electrolysis (usually collected at lower current densities) and the outlined new treatments to technological/separation electrolysis (on the contrary, usually at higher values of current densities) were applied. The obtained data can serve as a reference data in further research to reduce the energy consumption of the technology used. Graphical abstract