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Ted Mooney, P.E. RET
Pine Beach, NJ

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Nickel and tin recovery from waste via chemical treatment rather than electroplating?

Q. I am a new recovery plant in Malaysia. Actually we want to recover nickel. Instead of using electroplating, can I leach out the nickel sludge by using sulfuric acid and then precipitate out using sodium hydroxide to get high concentratration of nickel hydroxide?

Also, same for tin sludge, can I use the same method as for nickel? Or does tin need another acid to leach out?

Wan Rozina
resources conservation - Selangor, Malaysia
2006

A. I find it hard to believe that your company does not have a chemist on staff or access to someone with this knowledge. It would seem that this would be a necessity for safe operation in your chosen field of endeavor.

Gene Packman
process supplier - Great Neck, New York
2006

Gene is reliably helpful -- I think we caught him on a bad day :-)

We're working hard to build a technical resource here, not shame people away from contributing to it. An inquirer might well hold a PhD in chemistry, have other chemists working for him, already have proven his theory in the lab -- and yet still be looking for practical input from his peers. For example, while nickel and tin can be dissolved in acids, there might be a fufu juice that can be tweaked in which improves some aspect of the recovery process.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey

A. If the sludge is tin hydroxides mixed with other metal hydroxides, then hot sodium hydroxide will dissolve the tin and leave most of the other metals in the sludge. It is possible to electrowin tin from this solution.

Lyle Kirman
consultant - Cleveland Heights, Ohio
2006

Q. I'm looking for some ideas about recovering nickel and tin from some solutions that have been used in circuit making.

Dhumketu shah
- baroda,gujarat, India
September 6, 2008

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