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Charcoal filtering for air pollution control of small-scale nickel plating

Can charcoal filtering be used for air purification for small indoor nickel plating projects like plating bolts in a 600 cc beaker [beakers on eBay or Amazon [affil links] at 140 °F Watts nickel sulphate ?

GREG SMITH
- Wentzville, Missouri
February 12, 2010

Hi, Greg. The vapor pressure of nickel is very low. Until maybe 15 years ago I never saw a nickel plating tank ventilated, and I'm talking of tank capacities of thousands and tens of thousands of gallons. So you do not need any kind of fume scrubbing for a 600 cc beaker, and I doubt that charcoal filtering would remove much nickel is any was detectable, which it probably won't be :-)

For the benefit of other readers who might get confused, I should probably note that I don't think it's correct to call a nickel sulphate bath "Watts", though; I think that term implies a mixed nickel sulphate / nickel chloride bath.

Regards,

Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
February 14, 2010