Characterization of Cathode Structure in Copper Electrorefining Process via Chaotic Current Regulation and Additive Synergy
摘要
In traditional direct current electrolysis, cathode copper is prone to sensitivity to additive concentration, grain coarsening, and a rough surface. In this work, a four-dimensional classical Chua’s chaotic circuit based on a memristor is used as the control method. By combining operational amplifiers, resistors, capacitors, and other components, a circuit is built to generate a chaotic current conforming to the governing equations for control. The concentration influence boundaries of thiourea, gelatin, and bone glue were determined by single-factor analysis, and the optimal concentration window of their synergistic effects was screened by orthogonal design. The results show that, compared with the direct current sample, the cathode copper under chaotic-current control exhibits refined grains, with a Scherrer grain size of 33.1 nm, while the direct current sample has a Scherrer grain size of 42.8 nm. The average purity reaches 99.93 wt pct, 0.12 wt pct higher than the direct current sample. The arithmetic average roughness decreases by 50.47 pct, the root-mean-square roughness by 57.96 pct, and structural integrity is significantly improved. It is found that perturbation of the nonlinear current field, together with additive regulation, effectively suppresses grain coarsening and surface roughness and enhances the compactness and stability of the copper layer.