Designs configuration with uniform current

In a related study, Lin et al. [42] used a bipolar arrangement of the same reactor and electrode system mentioned above to compare the performance of the two configurations. The bipolar design was shown to yield higher current efficiencies for cyanide destruction at the expense of a higher power consumption. Nonuniform copper deposition on various cathodes showed that the reactions were not occurring uniformly with the bipolar arrangement. 

Design methods try to include potential variations in the analysis. Local variations in product distribution and current efficiency are deduced and are part of the overall design. These approaches tend to assume an ideal reactor configuration in which the primary current distribution is uniform. This ideal is sometimes approached in practice but some reactor geometries exhibit severe nonuniform distributions, particularly at the higher current densities demanded in industry. It is important to analyze such systems and determine conditions which will minimize these effects. In the following sections we will consider the problem of current distribution and illustrate some calculations with worked examples. 

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