Approximately 50 % of the gold produced in the world is used as an alloy with copper, silver, and some other metals. Discovered by Wohlwill, the most common method of electrochemical refining used for purifying the used gold, has two major limitations. Firstly, a high gold content of the anode (more than 95 %) is needed, which requires pre-refining with other refining methods (Miller process) associated with gold and silver loss. Also, to achieve high gold assay cathode, the electrolyte needs to be very concentrated, 60–100 g/L gold. This increases capital costs and prevents its use in small refineries.

In the present experimental study, an attempt was made to eliminate both limitations and optimize the effective operating parameters in the process of electrochemical refining of gold-copper-silver alloy. In the optimal state, using an anode of 75 % gold, an electrolyte with ionic concentration of 2 M, a process temperature of 25° C, and a specific cathode current of 0.02 amps/cm² led to the production of cathode gold with a grade of 95.3 % at an electrolyte gold concentration below 1 g/l. In addition, the current efficiency was calculated, and its relationship with the cathode grade was investigated. In this study, a new parameter of “selective separation factor” was introduced and used to evaluate the performance of experiments, representing the performance of selective cathodic regeneration and deposition on the cathode surface.

世界上大约 50% 的黄金被用作与铜、银和其他一些金属的合金。Wohlwill 发现，用于提纯用过的黄金的最常见的电化学精炼方法有两个主要限制。首先，需要阳极的高金含量（超过 95%），这需要使用其他与金和银损失相关的精炼方法（米勒法）进行预精炼。此外，为了实现高金含量阴极，电解液需要非常浓缩，60–100 g/L 金。这增加了资本成本并妨碍了它在小型炼油厂中的使用。

在本实验研究中，试图消除这两个限制并优化金铜银合金电化学精炼过程中的有效操作参数。在最佳状态下，使用 75% 金的阳极，离子浓度为 2 M 的电解质，工艺温度为 25°C，比阴极电流为 0.02 amps/cm ²导致在电解金浓度低于 1 g/l 的情况下生产品位为 95.3% 的阴极金。此外，还计算了电流效率，并研究了其与正极等级的关系。在这项研究中，引入了一个新参数“选择性分离因子”并用于评估实验性能，代表了选择性阴极再生和阴极表面沉积的性能。