The Jameson Cell is used to recover the organic solvent in solvent extraction – electrowinning plants from both the electrolyte and raffinate streams.
Contamination of the electrolyte increases operating costs and reduces the quality of the copper product.  Any solvent remaining in the raffinate stream represents a loss of solvent and hence an increase in operating costs.
Major users of the Cell in SX–EW plants include Freeport McMoRan at its Morenci operations, BHP Billiton at its Olympic Dam operations and Grupo México at its Cananea and La Caridad operations. In all, Xstrata Technology reports 41 SX–EW applications.
Recent developments in the Cell design for SX–EW applications include large, flat-bottomed cell design to allow it to sit on the ground and large (500 mm diameter) downcomers that can have multiple liquor (there being no slurry in SX–EW applications) lenses fitted to each downcomer.
The biggest operating Cell is at the Olympic Dam operations, treating 3000 m/h of raffinate.