Recovery Of Nickel From Simulated Nickel Bath Solutions On Carbon Matrices Using An Electrogenerative Process
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Date
2010-12
Authors
Poh, Wan Hui
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Publisher
Universiti Sains Malaysia
Abstract
Nickel plating is used extensively for decorative, engineering and electroforming purposes. The most widely used method of removing nickel from effluents is to precipitate nickel and other metals as hydroxides or sulfides. A batch electrochemical reactor operating in an electrogenerative mode was used to recover nickel from simulated nickel bath solutions. A spontaneous chemical reaction will take place in the reactor and generate an external flow of current. In this present work, a batch cell with an improved design using three-dimensional cathodes namely porous graphite and reticulated vitreous carbon (RVC) is used. The electrogenerative system was demonstrated and the performance of the system using carbon cathode materials for nickel recovery was evaluated. The behavior of various nickel baths was studied by recording changes in the cathode potential and evaluating the recovery of nickel from such baths by using atomic absorption spectroscopy. Scanning electron microscopy-energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction analyses were used to investigate the structure and morphology of the deposited nickel. RVC serves as a superior cathode material having the highest recovery rate with 82.4% of nickel being recovered in 8 h of operation from hard nickel bath solutions. The percentage of nickel recovery is 72.6% after 8 h operation on a black nickel bath using SG-132 as a cathode. The morphology of nickel deposits on carbon surfaces from black nickel bath, hard nickel bath and high sulphate bath solutions was also investigated. Deposits from various bath solutions are pure metallic nickel.
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Keywords
Recovery of nickel from simulated nickel bath solutions , on carbon matrices using an electrogenerative process