Question

During electrolytic refining of zinc, it gets:
A. Deposited on cathode
B. Deposited on anode
C. Deposited on cathode as well as anode
D. Remains in the solution

Answer 1

Hint: Try to recall that cathode in electrolytic refining of zinc is the aluminium blanks and metal reduced gets deposited on the cathode and is later scraped off. Now, by using this you can easily find the correct option from the given ones.

Complete step by step solution:
-It is known to you that zinc does not occur in its native form because it is a reactive metal. -The principal ore of zinc is zinc blende.
-The zinc blende ore is first concentrated by froth floatation process, then the concentrated ore is roasted to convert zinc sulphide to zinc oxide, then zinc oxide is reduced to zinc by heating with crushed coke and finally, the impure zinc metal is refined by fractional distillation or by electrolytic method.
-We will see the refining of zinc metal by electrolytic method: In this process, the impure zinc is made anode while a plate of pure zinc is made the cathode. The electrolyte is zinc sulphate containing a small amount of dilute sulphuric acid.
 -On, passing current, zinc from the electrolyte is deposited at the cathode while an equivalent amount of zinc from anode goes into the electrolyte. Therefore, pure zinc is obtained on cathode.

Hence, from above we can easily conclude that option A is the correct option to the question.

Note: It should be remembered that zinc is widely used for galvanising iron and is also used in the extraction of gold and silver by cyanide process.
Also, you should remember that zinc is used in dry cells as electrodes and also used for the manufacture of alloys such as brass, german silver, etc.