Explain how Electrolysis is used to make pure copper from a lump of impure copper
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Elctrolysis is the conduction of electricity through something melted or dissolved in order to induce decomposition of the melted or dissolved chemical into its components. Copper is separated from other components of the former impure mixture of copper.
Copper is a very unreactive metal - it's below even hydrogen in the reactivity series. This means it won't even react with water. For this reason, copper is obtained very easily from its ore by reduction with carbon. However, this copper isn't pure enough for use in electrical conductors. The purer the copper is, the better it will conduct. Electrolysis is used to obtain very pure copper. Cathode | ---------------| |------------- Anode | || --- ------ | | | | | | Cu2+ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | --- |----- ------------ / Sludge --------------------------------------. The cathode starts as a very thin piece of pure copper and more pure copper adds to it. The anode is just a big lump of impure copper which will dissolve. The sludge is all the impurities. The reaction at the cathode - Cu2+(aq) + 2s- - Cu(s) The reaction at the anode - Cu(s) - Cu2+ + 2e- The electrical supply acts by pulling electrons off the copper atoms at the anode, causing them to become Cu2+ ions. It then offers the electrons at the cathode to nearby Cu2+ ions to turn them back into copper atoms. The impurities are dropped off, and pure copper bonds to the cathode. This process can go on for weeks, with the cathode often twenty times bigger by the end.
An electrolytic process is the use of electrolysis industrially to refine metals or compounds at a high purity and low cost. Some examples are the Hall-Héroult process used for aluminium, or the production of hydrogen from water. Electrolysis is usually done in bulk using hundreds of sheets of metal connected to an electric power source. In the production of copper, these pure sheets of copper are used as starter material for the cathodes, and are then lowered into a solution such as copper sulfate with the large anodes that are cast from impure (97% pure) copper. The copper from the anodes are electroplated on to the cathodes, while any inpurities settle to the bottom of the tank. This forms cathodes of 99.999% pure copper
