Nice pathway! One should only have in mind that a lot of nickel salt containing and highly carcinogenic aerosols are released in dissolving the alloy and the aluminum afterwards, so that this worksteps should only be done outside while wearing a particle filter mask or in a good fumehood.
Agreed^^ I've been meaning to do a standalone safety video for a few weeks now since I never add disclaimers and many of these processes are potentially very dangerous.
@Apoptosis An even easier to separate the copper from the nickel is to add a solution of a soluble iodide mixed with a soluble sulfite/bisulfite/metabisulfe to the solution containing both copper(II) and nickel(II). This will precipitate all of the copper as copper(I) iodide without any elemental iodine formation, leaving behind a solution containing only nickel(II).
I actually did try that once (and even filmed it but I guess I didn't include it here for time constraints). Anyway it did work a lot better than simple reduction to copper (I) Chloride but I seem to remember there still being a fair amount of copper in solution. My suspicion is that copper iodide might just dissolve more readily in strongly acidic solutions and my solution was too acidic here. I didn't note any elemental iodine forming so I don't believe there was excess Cu2+ Either way definitely worth retrying.
@@integral_chemistry If there´s no reducing agents present in solution, copper(II) ions do react with soluble iodides to form copper(I) iodide and elemental iodine since copper(II) iodide is thermodynamically unstable and instantly decomposes. I´m not 100% sure if copper(I) iodide is that soluble in strongly acidic solutions but you can always try to bring the solution closer to neutral with sodium hydroxide. And one thing to try to keep in mind is that copper(I) iodide dissolves in excess iodide solutions to form a soluble diiodocuprate(I) complex but that can be reverted by dilution with water which will cause any dissolved copper(I) to precipitate out.
Thanks for the video, very instructive. I am trying to extract nickel, copper and aluminium from a nickel alloy (62% Ni - 30% Cu - 5% Al - ...) using this method. I am using the same protocol. Dissolution is working fine in aqua regia. Then I am precipitating the copper with Al. And then I try the same with Nickel but it seems to be very slow (I heat at 80°C). What do you think about it since it is more nickel than copper ? Do you have an idea how to recover aluminium ? Thanks a lot !
Hey really sorry about the late reply. I agree the nickel was way way slower to precipitate than the copper (which makes sense given the difference in reactivity. I might actually consider precipitating the nickel using electrolysis if that's something you're familiar with.
Aluminum alloys used to make foil usually contain 0,5-1,5% iron so your nickel is probably contaminated with it. If you want some more purity you can use cheap alloys that have less aluminum like soda cans (max 0,8% Fe) and old electrical wires made before the 70s (max 0,4% Fe). Unfortunately aluminum without iron is hard to come by outside labs (series 7 alloys? japanese 1 yen coins?). Another way is to separate iron and nickel, but you'd have to oxidize ferrous ions to ferric ones with H2O2. Adding aquaeous ammonia precipitates ferric hydroxide but complexes nickel which stays in solution.
Hmm cobalt could be weird.. tbh lately I've realized the best way to seperate out nickel is by making a tutton salt. Nickel tutton salt is by far the least soluble of the tuttons salta and super easy to crystallize out compared to iron, cobalt, copper, etc.
I am wondering if you need 'concentrated' hydrochloric acid to make aqua regia. Would it still work with 18% hydrochloric acid and a nitrate salt? We have some 18% brick cleaner as that is what we can easily purchase here in the UK. I am thinking I might just need to use twice as much of it.
As I think, Cu(I) and iodide manipulations are excessive. Why you just don't reduce everything with aluminium, and then dissolve precipitate in duluted HCl for NiCl2?
You're right, I kinda just did it because I wanted to see how effective it was at precipitating the copper to eliminate a step (it didn't work as well as I hoped). The best strategy is likely a partial Precipitation with aluminum to just remove the copper, filter it off, and then another Precipitation of just the nickel since the copper is precipitated first (and the solution color change will indicate when it's all gone)
I been looking for a way to do that too. I was gonna use DMG to separate out the nickel. DMG is expensive though, so your way is cheaper. Cool fact, old canadian Quarters are 100% nickel. A Canadian quarter was my 1st time working with pure nickel, I was surprised how strongly it sticks to a magnet, nearly as strong as steel.
Yeah dude non-ferrous metals that are strongly attracted to magnets are so weird to me (the other big ones are cobalt and manganese). But yeah I think this method is probably your best bet, but obviously you can fine-tune it a good deal. The best possible method for purity is actually to bubble hydrogen sulfide gas (VERY DANGEROUS) through the dissolved nickel solution which will precipitate copper sulfide while the nickel sulfide will stay dissolved. You can then filter away the copper sulfide and then precipitate out the nickel without any copper impurity. You could do it with sodium thiocyanate too.
Another way to separate the nickel and copper after making their hydroxides is to first dissolve them in excess citric acid to make copper and nickel citrate then add NaOH the NaOH will react with the excess citric acid to make a soluable copper complex but the nickel wouldn't and insoluable nickel hydroxide will precipitate out.
Just be careful for anyone performing this- nickel compounds are carcinogenic and should NOT be fooled around with without training/ protective equipment!
I am just wondering how you work out the stoiciometric amount of aluminium after you have removed an unknown amount of your copper already as the copper 1 chloride? Do you need to add the water or can you miss that step and start adding aluminium to precipitate out the copper so avoiding the copper 1 chloride coming out and interfering with the stoiciometric calculations for the aluminium? I am wanting to extract the nickel from some nickel silver cutlery. My plan was to saturate the AR solution with as much nickel silver cutlery as is will dissolve and then take out any pieces it hadn't dissolved. Or I might make up small amounts of AR and add it until the metal just dissolves. It might take a while. I have made up a spreadsheet to do the molar and weight calculations. We just need to keep a track on the weight of the metal we have dissolved. The nickel silver metal, has no silver, but is around 62% copper 18% nickel and 20% zinc(by weight). I have worked out the molar stoiciometric amounts of iron to add to match the copper and nickel I want to remove from the solution. I am wondering if I can just do that straight into the AR solution to avoid the copper 1 chloride coming out and muddling the calculations? I don't really understand the '1' part of the copper 1 chloride but hopefully don't need to understand that at this point. I am a complete beginner but learning so could do with a bit of guidance.
So the "I" in copper (I) Chloride refers to the oxidation state of the copper, and it means the formula is CuCl. Copper (II) Chloride is CuCl2, and it's advantage is that it's much more water soluble than the CuCl. It's pretty easy to convert Copper I chloride to copper II chloride though to keep your numbers straight. Just add 3% hydrogen peroxide and keep adding until it all dissolves.
@@integral_chemistry Thank you for the replies. It is very helpful. Just to check... Adding the 3% hydrogen peroxide converts the copper I chloride into copper II chloride and it goes back into solution with the rest of the copper II chloride? Then it is ready for the stoiciometric amount of aluminium to be added?
I've kinda wondered if you could make Raney nickel from US nickels, seems like while it'd be a lot easier to get the aluminum-nickel alloy to separate it oughta be doable to leave the nickel untouched while dissolving the copper. I've considered either a concentrated HCL-peroxide solution or a hot, concentrated NaOH solution, both of which should dissolve copper but leave nickel semi-untouched and make a good sponge, but I haven't had a chance to test it. I'd love if someone else did it first though, it's a lot of effort to melt down a buncha beer cans and then dissolve in the nickel tabs off of old batteries, let it cool down, THEN dissolve in NaOH when I could just try dissolving a roll of nickels in boiling NaOH solution... Another promising approach is concentrated aqueous ammonia, but I hate working with it cause of how much it stinks up the whole neighborhood.
I had no idea nickel was magnetic until this video. I thought it was non ferrous because non magnetic stainless steel contains a higher percentage of nickel than mangetic stainless steel.
"Ferrous" means "containing iron," and nickel is a different element than iron. But iron isn't the only metal attracted to magnets. Cobalt and Nickel are also magnetic because like iron, their atoms have the right type of lattice arrangement in the crystalline structure of the pure elements. Any alloy or mineral containing enough iron, cobalt, or nickle in it can also have magnetic properties.
Hi I am interested in doing a similar thing but using Nickel silver cutlery that we have stripped the silver from. This, I believe, is a 60% copper 20% nickel, 20% zinc alloy and I am wondering what would happen if you precipitated out your copper and nickel using aluminium with the zinc present in solution. I think I would get to your step at ruclips.net/video/3J4qk-ELi4w/видео.html and then start precipitating the copper first then the nickel. Would the zinc stay in solution or also drop out? Should I use and excess of zinc instead of aluminium so the zinc stays in solution? I am new to this so just trying to figure this out. Also how do you know the quantity of aluminium to add to just get the copper and not the nickel?
I'd use iron to precipitate out the nickel because iron will precipitate nickel but not zinc :) also, you can calculate the amount of aluminum necessary by multiplying the total mass of your cutlery by 0.6 to get just the mass of copper. Divide that by the molar mass of copper to get moles of copper, and then add that number moles of aluminum to your solution to precipitate just the copper. Then add excess iron to precipitate the nickel. Watch out for using excess acid though because that will mess with your calculations a bit.
@@integral_chemistry Thank you for the reply that is great. Could I use less than the amount of aluminium necessary to drop out the copper just to make sure I don't start getting the nickel. Then retain the copper. Then slowly add more aluminium to the solution to drop out the last of the copper and have a magnet on the side of the beaker and as soon as magnetic particles start to be attracted to the magnet stop, take off the dropped out sediment and any unreacted aluminium. Then start on the iron to get the nickel. Would that be a good way to ensure I make clean copper and clean nickel with a small amount of mixed copper and nickel from the intermediate stage to dispose of? I don't know the exact ratios of copper, nickel and zinc in my source metals so thinking this might be a method to split them up cleanly.
@@integral_chemistry the easiest way is to dissolve the materials first then precipetate them with iron or aluminum then use your magnet to seperate them.
@@ajingolk7716 Using a magnet to separate nickel from copper after addition of aluminum sounds like a better option as with iron, if you add excess your nickel will be contaminated with iron
@@everettduncan7543 i guess aluminum will precipetate both of them iron is your best choice or you can bubble carbon monoxide in the solution with a temperature of 70 C°
Be careful due to laws of coins and destroying to my Knowledge. Seems like might not be aware I wound not post us coinage and instead show video with out showing the nickels your actually using to prevent any legal action for destroying coinage. People should put the 2 together just saying nickels and showing different or not a clear close up
The relevant law specifically exempts the destruction of coins for "novelty" purposes. While I'm not a lawyer, I can't imagine a federal court even considering to prosecute someone for dissolving two nickels for a chemistry demonstration. 😂
nickel from stainless steel would be more useful for us, nobody is going to melt their coins, but anyone would try to extract pure nickel out of lots of scrap stainless steel in scrap yard
Yeah this is a project I'd definitely like to retry from a cheaper/more practical source. I'm thinking nickel and chromium from scrap stainless cookware.. Not to mention the lower nickel percentage in stainless steel, and larger electronegativity difference compared to copper makes it way easier to process
I must be eating off of cheap stainless; I seem only to get iron and chromium only from there. This procedure was more in line with what I'd have to do, unless purchase online, which is even easier. But this is fun ❤
Nice pathway!
One should only have in mind that a lot of nickel salt containing and highly carcinogenic aerosols are released in dissolving the alloy and the aluminum afterwards, so that this worksteps should only be done outside while wearing a particle filter mask or in a good fumehood.
Agreed^^ I've been meaning to do a standalone safety video for a few weeks now since I never add disclaimers and many of these processes are potentially very dangerous.
@Apoptosis An even easier to separate the copper from the nickel is to add a solution of a soluble iodide mixed with a soluble sulfite/bisulfite/metabisulfe to the solution containing both copper(II) and nickel(II). This will precipitate all of the copper as copper(I) iodide without any elemental iodine formation, leaving behind a solution containing only nickel(II).
I actually did try that once (and even filmed it but I guess I didn't include it here for time constraints). Anyway it did work a lot better than simple reduction to copper (I) Chloride but I seem to remember there still being a fair amount of copper in solution. My suspicion is that copper iodide might just dissolve more readily in strongly acidic solutions and my solution was too acidic here. I didn't note any elemental iodine forming so I don't believe there was excess Cu2+
Either way definitely worth retrying.
@@integral_chemistry If there´s no reducing agents present in solution, copper(II) ions do react with soluble iodides to form copper(I) iodide and elemental iodine since copper(II) iodide is thermodynamically unstable and instantly decomposes. I´m not 100% sure if copper(I) iodide is that soluble in strongly acidic solutions but you can always try to bring the solution closer to neutral with sodium hydroxide. And one thing to try to keep in mind is that copper(I) iodide dissolves in excess iodide solutions to form a soluble diiodocuprate(I) complex but that can be reverted by dilution with water which will cause any dissolved copper(I) to precipitate out.
Thanks for the video, very instructive. I am trying to extract nickel, copper and aluminium from a nickel alloy (62% Ni - 30% Cu - 5% Al - ...) using this method. I am using the same protocol. Dissolution is working fine in aqua regia. Then I am precipitating the copper with Al. And then I try the same with Nickel but it seems to be very slow (I heat at 80°C). What do you think about it since it is more nickel than copper ? Do you have an idea how to recover aluminium ? Thanks a lot !
Hey really sorry about the late reply. I agree the nickel was way way slower to precipitate than the copper (which makes sense given the difference in reactivity.
I might actually consider precipitating the nickel using electrolysis if that's something you're familiar with.
Aluminum alloys used to make foil usually contain 0,5-1,5% iron so your nickel is probably contaminated with it. If you want some more purity you can use cheap alloys that have less aluminum like soda cans (max 0,8% Fe) and old electrical wires made before the 70s (max 0,4% Fe). Unfortunately aluminum without iron is hard to come by outside labs (series 7 alloys? japanese 1 yen coins?). Another way is to separate iron and nickel, but you'd have to oxidize ferrous ions to ferric ones with H2O2. Adding aquaeous ammonia precipitates ferric hydroxide but complexes nickel which stays in solution.
Any iron in aluminum will dissolve along with it in HCl much like iron wool in HCl, specially with heat.
How would you use this method if you put in raw stones with possibly iron, nickel, and cobalt? Im looking for help
Hmm cobalt could be weird.. tbh lately I've realized the best way to seperate out nickel is by making a tutton salt. Nickel tutton salt is by far the least soluble of the tuttons salta and super easy to crystallize out compared to iron, cobalt, copper, etc.
Why did you need aqua regia? Couldn't HCl & air do the jub, of HNO3?
Yes, but it's a super slow process
HCl doesn't dissolve copper, at least not without long aeration. HNO3 would do but I guess HCl and nitrate are just cheaper and easier to get.
I am wondering if you need 'concentrated' hydrochloric acid to make aqua regia. Would it still work with 18% hydrochloric acid and a nitrate salt?
We have some 18% brick cleaner as that is what we can easily purchase here in the UK. I am thinking I might just need to use twice as much of it.
yep that would work perfectly fine! Nickel specifically seems to dissolve better in dilute acids anyway I've found.
the dollar store funnels are a nice touch
Super! Thank you very much! Nickel from batery cell, is my big problem!
Thx this helped with my homework
As I think, Cu(I) and iodide manipulations are excessive. Why you just don't reduce everything with aluminium, and then dissolve precipitate in duluted HCl for NiCl2?
You're right, I kinda just did it because I wanted to see how effective it was at precipitating the copper to eliminate a step (it didn't work as well as I hoped). The best strategy is likely a partial Precipitation with aluminum to just remove the copper, filter it off, and then another Precipitation of just the nickel since the copper is precipitated first (and the solution color change will indicate when it's all gone)
I been looking for a way to do that too. I was gonna use DMG to separate out the nickel. DMG is expensive though, so your way is cheaper. Cool fact, old canadian Quarters are 100% nickel. A Canadian quarter was my 1st time working with pure nickel, I was surprised how strongly it sticks to a magnet, nearly as strong as steel.
Yeah dude non-ferrous metals that are strongly attracted to magnets are so weird to me (the other big ones are cobalt and manganese). But yeah I think this method is probably your best bet, but obviously you can fine-tune it a good deal. The best possible method for purity is actually to bubble hydrogen sulfide gas (VERY DANGEROUS) through the dissolved nickel solution which will precipitate copper sulfide while the nickel sulfide will stay dissolved. You can then filter away the copper sulfide and then precipitate out the nickel without any copper impurity. You could do it with sodium thiocyanate too.
Another way to separate the nickel and copper after making their hydroxides is to first dissolve them in excess citric acid to make copper and nickel citrate then add NaOH the NaOH will react with the excess citric acid to make a soluable copper complex but the nickel wouldn't and insoluable nickel hydroxide will precipitate out.
Fun! Thank you!
Just be careful for anyone performing this- nickel compounds are carcinogenic and should NOT be fooled around with without training/ protective equipment!
I am just wondering how you work out the stoiciometric amount of aluminium after you have removed an unknown amount of your copper already as the copper 1 chloride?
Do you need to add the water or can you miss that step and start adding aluminium to precipitate out the copper so avoiding the copper 1 chloride coming out and interfering with the stoiciometric calculations for the aluminium?
I am wanting to extract the nickel from some nickel silver cutlery. My plan was to saturate the AR solution with as much nickel silver cutlery as is will dissolve and then take out any pieces it hadn't dissolved. Or I might make up small amounts of AR and add it until the metal just dissolves. It might take a while. I have made up a spreadsheet to do the molar and weight calculations. We just need to keep a track on the weight of the metal we have dissolved. The nickel silver metal, has no silver, but is around 62% copper 18% nickel and 20% zinc(by weight). I have worked out the molar stoiciometric amounts of iron to add to match the copper and nickel I want to remove from the solution. I am wondering if I can just do that straight into the AR solution to avoid the copper 1 chloride coming out and muddling the calculations?
I don't really understand the '1' part of the copper 1 chloride but hopefully don't need to understand that at this point.
I am a complete beginner but learning so could do with a bit of guidance.
So the "I" in copper (I) Chloride refers to the oxidation state of the copper, and it means the formula is CuCl. Copper (II) Chloride is CuCl2, and it's advantage is that it's much more water soluble than the CuCl.
It's pretty easy to convert Copper I chloride to copper II chloride though to keep your numbers straight. Just add 3% hydrogen peroxide and keep adding until it all dissolves.
@@integral_chemistry Thank you for the replies. It is very helpful. Just to check... Adding the 3% hydrogen peroxide converts the copper I chloride into copper II chloride and it goes back into solution with the rest of the copper II chloride? Then it is ready for the stoiciometric amount of aluminium to be added?
wow good job sir
I've kinda wondered if you could make Raney nickel from US nickels, seems like while it'd be a lot easier to get the aluminum-nickel alloy to separate it oughta be doable to leave the nickel untouched while dissolving the copper. I've considered either a concentrated HCL-peroxide solution or a hot, concentrated NaOH solution, both of which should dissolve copper but leave nickel semi-untouched and make a good sponge, but I haven't had a chance to test it. I'd love if someone else did it first though, it's a lot of effort to melt down a buncha beer cans and then dissolve in the nickel tabs off of old batteries, let it cool down, THEN dissolve in NaOH when I could just try dissolving a roll of nickels in boiling NaOH solution... Another promising approach is concentrated aqueous ammonia, but I hate working with it cause of how much it stinks up the whole neighborhood.
Bro can you show it without the extra steps. I got cupro nickel I need to separate on a larger scale..
Thank you
vey cool video appreciate your time and effort.
Nice! Thanx fore entertainment👍🏻🙏🏻
I had no idea nickel was magnetic until this video. I thought it was non ferrous because non magnetic stainless steel contains a higher percentage of nickel than mangetic stainless steel.
"Ferrous" means "containing iron," and nickel is a different element than iron. But iron isn't the only metal attracted to magnets. Cobalt and Nickel are also magnetic because like iron, their atoms have the right type of lattice arrangement in the crystalline structure of the pure elements. Any alloy or mineral containing enough iron, cobalt, or nickle in it can also have magnetic properties.
U said that u could not find any method online . If u have searched this on youtube you would have got my video on 2nd or 3rd no.
Oof my mistake.. maybe I entered the wrong search query because I couldn't find anything for the life of me. Did you do a similar process?
@@integral_chemistry yes i did the same thing but in a different manner. I used a cheap method.
👏👏👏👏👏👏
Do nickel extraction from pumpernickel.
🤣🤣
Hi I am interested in doing a similar thing but using Nickel silver cutlery that we have stripped the silver from. This, I believe, is a 60% copper 20% nickel, 20% zinc alloy and I am wondering what would happen if you precipitated out your copper and nickel using aluminium with the zinc present in solution. I think I would get to your step at ruclips.net/video/3J4qk-ELi4w/видео.html and then start precipitating the copper first then the nickel. Would the zinc stay in solution or also drop out? Should I use and excess of zinc instead of aluminium so the zinc stays in solution? I am new to this so just trying to figure this out.
Also how do you know the quantity of aluminium to add to just get the copper and not the nickel?
I'd use iron to precipitate out the nickel because iron will precipitate nickel but not zinc :) also, you can calculate the amount of aluminum necessary by multiplying the total mass of your cutlery by 0.6 to get just the mass of copper. Divide that by the molar mass of copper to get moles of copper, and then add that number moles of aluminum to your solution to precipitate just the copper. Then add excess iron to precipitate the nickel.
Watch out for using excess acid though because that will mess with your calculations a bit.
@@integral_chemistry Thank you for the reply that is great. Could I use less than the amount of aluminium necessary to drop out the copper just to make sure I don't start getting the nickel. Then retain the copper. Then slowly add more aluminium to the solution to drop out the last of the copper and have a magnet on the side of the beaker and as soon as magnetic particles start to be attracted to the magnet stop, take off the dropped out sediment and any unreacted aluminium. Then start on the iron to get the nickel. Would that be a good way to ensure I make clean copper and clean nickel with a small amount of mixed copper and nickel from the intermediate stage to dispose of?
I don't know the exact ratios of copper, nickel and zinc in my source metals so thinking this might be a method to split them up cleanly.
This is the hard expensive way😢
It is 😅 definitely recommended electrolysis
@@integral_chemistry the easiest way is to dissolve the materials first then precipetate them with iron or aluminum then use your magnet to seperate them.
@@ajingolk7716 Using a magnet to separate nickel from copper after addition of aluminum sounds like a better option as with iron, if you add excess your nickel will be contaminated with iron
@@everettduncan7543 i guess aluminum will precipetate both of them iron is your best choice or you can bubble carbon monoxide in the solution with a temperature of 70 C°
Be careful due to laws of coins and destroying to my Knowledge. Seems like might not be aware I wound not post us coinage and instead show video with out showing the nickels your actually using to prevent any legal action for destroying coinage. People should put the 2 together just saying nickels and showing different or not a clear close up
The relevant law specifically exempts the destruction of coins for "novelty" purposes. While I'm not a lawyer, I can't imagine a federal court even considering to prosecute someone for dissolving two nickels for a chemistry demonstration. 😂
nickel from stainless steel would be more useful for us, nobody is going to melt their coins, but anyone would try to extract pure nickel out of lots of scrap stainless steel in scrap yard
Yeah this is a project I'd definitely like to retry from a cheaper/more practical source. I'm thinking nickel and chromium from scrap stainless cookware..
Not to mention the lower nickel percentage in stainless steel, and larger electronegativity difference compared to copper makes it way easier to process
I must be eating off of cheap stainless; I seem only to get iron and chromium only from there. This procedure was more in line with what I'd have to do, unless purchase online, which is even easier. But this is fun ❤