Sciencemadness Discussion Board - nickel chloride

nickel chloride

chemchem - 12-4-2005 at 20:57

hi ! if one wanted to synthesise nickel chloride ,what acids besides nitric will nickel metal disolve in, if any ? could one disolve it by an electrochemical method with a dc power source in a common acid ?
possibly like how palladium can be disolved in hcl with dc currant? sounds to me as possible similar method ? thanks ////

Darkblade48 - 12-4-2005 at 21:06

Correct me if I'm wrong, I was always under the impression that nickel would readily displace the hydrogen in HCl to form NiCl.

BromicAcid - 12-4-2005 at 21:14

Nickel dissolves in HCl so slow you wouldn't even normally notice after an hour. Bubbling air though HCl will lead to faster oxidation. Adding H2O2 to HCl will lead to faster oxidation. Performing electrolysis with nickel electrodes (the anode being submersed significantly further into the solution then the cathode) in HCl will lead to rapid dissolution at about 12 V and 15A. Once you have as much nickel dissolved as you want (i.e. it won't dissolve any more) it is difficult to evaporate a full solution of it because the nickel increases the boilng point significantly. Attached is a picture from my book project for my attempts to dissolve nickel under several conditions, notice the attack in the H2SO4/H2O2 solution [H2SO4 > 90%, H2O2 ~ 12%].

Edit: This was the result after 1 week at roughly 20 C, and if you're planning on working with palladium save yourself some pain and get some nitric to dissolve it, you don't want to mess around with something that expensive, too much is lost and there is too great a possibility to mess up.

[Edited on 4/13/2005 by BromicAcid]

nickeldissolve.jpg - 35kB

nickel chloride

chemchem - 12-4-2005 at 21:26

thanks bromic.. mabee concerntrated hcl with a air bubbler and dask of hydrogen poroxide will disolve the metal not to slowly ?? then just boil off hci water mix for your green nickel chloride crystals

BromicAcid - 12-4-2005 at 21:29

Yeah, and while you're boiling down your HCl solution leave some solid nickel in there to dissolve some more while it's hot and active. A little side note, anhydrous NiCl2 is yellow or maybe white (mine may not be dehydrated all the way...).

Related topics:

Nickel From Coins
http://67.15.145.24/~sciencem/talk/viewthread.php?tid=534
Nickel Sulfate
http://67.15.145.24/~sciencem/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2109

[Edited on 4/13/2005 by BromicAcid]

thanks

chemchem - 12-4-2005 at 21:33

thanks bromo muck appreciated info

nickel anodes

chemchem - 13-4-2005 at 03:39

i think the most fuss free method of obtaining nickel metal would be via the nickel anodes for welding .. shoul be able to pick them up from most welding supplies shops ....

chemoleo - 13-4-2005 at 05:00

Alternatively, buy some Nickel oxide from a pottery supply and dissolve it in HCl.
Done it with HNO3, works very nicely.

PS: Chemchem, my spelling indicator is jagging wildely. Ever heard of CAPITALISATION?

chemchem - 13-4-2005 at 06:57

Nickel oxide from pottery shop ? Sounds good.. do you know of its use in potery ? Thanks for the reply .. Sorry about the punctuation on previous posts >> Hope ive fixed that problem ! Thanks

Colorant

chloric1 - 13-4-2005 at 09:34

Actually, chemchem, it is a colorant material. A raw material used to color pottery glazes. You will have to search online and it is not always easy to find raw materials so you have to do some digging. Many pottery suppliers carry premixed glazes so they can make more money that way.

hodges - 16-4-2005 at 13:44

One way to get nickel chloride in a reasonable amount of time with HCl is electrolysis. I once took an old Canadian coin that was mostly nickel and made it the anode in HCl. HCl is a good conductor, so no problem getting current to flow even with a low voltage. I ended up with a dark green solution. By keeping an excess of HCl very little nickel plates back out on the cathode.

Once completed you could neutralize the remaining HCl using NaOH and precipitate nickel hydroxide, which you could then use to make whatever salt you want. Or you might be able to just evaporate the remaining HCl. .

aludel - 18-4-2005 at 14:12

Quote:

Originally posted by BromicAcid

Related topics:

Nickel From Coins
http://67.15.145.24/~sciencem/talk/viewthread.php?tid=534
Nickel Sulfate
http://67.15.145.24/~sciencem/talk/viewthread.php?tid=2109

[Edited on 4/13/2005 by BromicAcid]

Thanks for the info and pic!

Ah, in the good old days Dutch guilders and some other Dutch coins were made of nearly pure nickel! I used to dissolve them in HNO3 (taking care of the fumes of course), precipitate the carbonate and dissolve that in H2SO4 to get nickel sulphate. Probably not pure enough for the ultra-black stuff??

nitroglycol - 30-10-2005 at 16:07

Canadian quarters and dimes from before 2000 are essentially pure nickel (the new ones are nickel-plated steel, IIRC). I once attempted to dissolve two quarters in 1 M HCl. After many months the solution had turned green but the coins were still there (damaged, but the images were still visible) and the solution was still quite strongly acidic. I added more HCl (to bring it up to 2 M) but to no avail. Eventually I moved halfway across the country and had to terminate the experiment. I'd like to try it with HNO3 but I think if I tried to buy that stuff I'd have to answer a lot of questions about what I planned to blow up. Maybe I'll try Hodges' suggestion once I have my lab set up.

Illegal Parkinson - 31-10-2005 at 09:44

I used not to have any interest in electrochemistry. However with chemical suppliers watching every item you buy im becoming increasing concious of making chemicals that are for all intents and purposes "commercially available" if possible, and reserve the chem supplier for instances where there is no way around it. There is a good section on electrochemistry in the book "Kings Chemistry" and Uncle Fester I believe was also fond of it.

There has got to be a way of doing it. I seem to recall Rhodium had something on either his website or at the hive on this topic. Although the aim there was to use palladium metal to make PdCl2, I think the same principles should apply. NiCl2 sounds like some tasty stuff

electrolysis

chloric1 - 31-10-2005 at 13:02

About 6 years ago I had a nickel electrode from one of the battery jar educational kits. It LOOKED like pure nickel but wasn't. I used it as an anode in about 30% perchloric acid. As the solution got darker nad darker green, low and behold copper formed on the cathode!! I said "What the hell?". Anyways, I just ran it until nickel began to plate and for all intents and purposes I purified my nickel

[Edited on 10/31/2005 by chloric1]

Dr. Beaker - 3-11-2005 at 17:19

any other metal with higher reduction potential will be displaced by Ni.
example:

Cu+2 +Ni --> Ni+2 + Cu

the higher the differrence the better.
highschool chemistry...

nitroglycol - 4-11-2005 at 16:40

Yeah, but if you just drop a quarter in a copper sulphate solution, say, won't it accumulate a layer of Cu that will prevent further reaction?

Darkblade48 - 4-11-2005 at 17:40

Quote:

Originally posted by nitroglycol
Yeah, but if you just drop a quarter in a copper sulphate solution, say, won't it accumulate a layer of Cu that will prevent further reaction?

I've always noticd that when I drop a metal that will displace the copper from a copper sulfate solutio (i.e. magnesium, aluminum) that the copper that comes out is not plated, but more of a spongy foam. This kinda just breaks away from the metal and copper continues being displaced by the more reactive metal species.

12AX7 - 4-11-2005 at 18:06

BTW if you want a massive reducing agent, take an acidic CuCl2 solution and add aluminum. It'll get the solution boiling pretty quickly!

Cementation tends to leave a weak layer, but something so little above copper, like nickel, is going to take weeks to depost. Not to mention nickels (the cheapest, most nickel-rich currency down here) are a solid solution of only 25% nickel, balance copper. As I posted months ago in this thread (apparently), you're better off dissolving them with electricity, with copper plating on the cathode.

Tim

Darkblade48 - 4-11-2005 at 18:43

Quote:

Originally posted by 12AX7
BTW if you want a massive reducing agent, take an acidic CuCl2 solution and add aluminum. It'll get the solution boiling pretty quickly!

Tim

Ironically, the reason why aluminum is so reactive in the presence of Cu+2 and chloride ions isn't too well understood

But it was fun nevertheless

The_Davster - 4-11-2005 at 18:55

I've done that with acidic copper sulfate and zinc, it does get pretty hot and violent(nearly boils).
Also, nitroglycol, how could you forget Canadian nickels? pre 1982 canadian nickels are pure nickel. 1954 is nickel plated steel, and before that is pure nickel again(till a certain year which I forget). If I could find my coin collecting book I could tell exactly the composition of all Canadain coinage, I used to/still do do a bit of coin collecting.