Home – Home – Jornals – Chemistry for Sustainable Development 2004 number 3

Publications dealing with theory and practice of harnessing porous flow electrodes (PEs) for electrochemical processing of dilute solutions (extraction of metals, disposal of processing media, electrosynthesis) are reviewed. Peculiarities of this type of PE and brief history of their studies and applications, including research at the Institute of Solid State Chemistry and Mechanochemistry, SB RAS, are considered. It is demonstrated that significant progress has been achieved after 30 years of work; this primarily manifests itself in the development of a wide range of efficient porous materials based on fine carbon and metallic fibers, promoting diffusion controlled electrochemical processes several hundreds (and even thousands) fold. Seeking conditions that ensure the efficient use of the entire surface of a PE available for electrolysis turned out to be a more complicated problem. It is stressed that inhomogeneous porous matrices should be studied from the viewpoint of prospects to substantially increase the effective working depth of the PE (using the variable conductivity of the solid phase) and for better insight into the dynamics of changes in the properties of porous matrices in the course of metal incorporation.