Thermokinetic Studies of the Process for Electrorefining Silver

In this work some calorimetric measurements were also carried out on the electrorefining silver by using different current densities with a Calvet type microcalorimeter at room temperature. The ratio (R) of the measured heat (_m) to the input electric energy (_in) and the excess heat (_ex), i.e., difference between _m and _in during the electrorefining process, were discussed in terms of general thermodynamics. It was found that the R and _ex for silver were related with the current density or cell voltage employed in the experiment. The results obtained here also indicate that the heat generation under different conditions, such as different currents or voltages may be caused partially by the irreversibility of the process or by some unknown processes.This revised version was published online in November 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.