In copper electrorefining and electrowinning, the conductivity and viscosity of the electrolyte affect the energy consumption, and for electrorefining the purity of cathode copper. Consequently, accurate models for predicting these properties are highly important. Although the modeling of conductivity and viscosity of synthetic copper electrolytes has been previously studied, only a few models have been validated with actual industrial electrolytes. The conductivity and viscosity models outlined in this study were developed using conductivity and viscosity measurements from both synthetic and industrial solutions. The synthetic electrolytes were investigated over a temperature range between 50–70 °C and typical concentrations of Cu (40–90 g/dm³), Ni (0–30 g/dm³), Fe (0–10 g/dm³), Co (0–5 g/dm³), As (0–63.8 g/dm³), H₂SO₄ (50–223 g/dm³) as well as other solution impurities like Sb in some cases. Validation of the synthetic electrolyte models was performed through industrial measurements at three copper plants across Europe. Generally, the developed models predicted the conductivities and viscosities of industrial solutions with high accuracy. The viscosity models covered extended ranges of both [H₂SO₄] and [Cu] with percentage errors of only (2.08 ± 0.59) - (2.48 ± 0.61). For conductivity, two different models for low (<142 g/dm³) and high (>142 g/dm³) [H₂SO₄] electrolytes were utilized. Their error margins were (−1.96 ± 0.84) - (−1.44 ± 0.35) and (1.17 ± 0.27) - (2.52 ± 0.28), respectively. In the case of high [H₂SO₄] electrolytes, the validations focused on conductivity, and the highest level of accuracy was obtained when the effects of Sb and other minor impurities were considered.

在铜电解精炼和电解提取中，电解液的电导率和粘度影响能耗，电解精炼阴极铜的纯度。因此，用于预测这些属性的准确模型非常重要。尽管之前已经研究了合成铜电解质的电导率和粘度的建模，但只有少数模型已经用实际工业电解质进行了验证。本研究中概述的电导率和粘度模型是使用来自合成和工业溶液的电导率和粘度测量值开发的。在 50–70 °C 和典型浓度的 Cu (40–90 g/dm ³ )、Ni (0–30 g/dm ³ )、Fe (0–10 g/dm ³ )、Fe (0–10 g/dm ³ )³ )、Co (0–5 g/dm ³ )、As (0–63.8 g/dm ³ )、H ₂ SO ₄ (50–223 g/dm ³ ) 以及在某些情况下其他溶液杂质如 Sb。合成电解质模型的验证是通过欧洲三个铜工厂的工业测量进行的。通常，开发的模型可以高精度地预测工业溶液的电导率和粘度。粘度模型涵盖了[H ₂ SO ₄ ]和[Cu] 的扩展范围，百分比误差仅为 (2.08 ± 0.59) - (2.48 ± 0.61)。对于电导率，低 (<142 g/dm ³) 和高 (>142 g/dm ³ ) [H ₂ SO ₄ ]电解质被使用。它们的误差范围分别为 (-1.96 ± 0.84) - (-1.44 ± 0.35) 和 (1.17 ± 0.27) - (2.52 ± 0.28)。在高[H ₂ SO ₄ ]电解质的情况下，验证集中在电导率上，并且在考虑 Sb 和其他微量杂质的影响时获得了最高水平的准确度。