Treatment and Disposal of spent electroless Nickel Plating solutions

摘要

Electroless nickel: How shall I treat thee? Let me count the ways. Elizabeth Barrette Browning would be overwhelmed by the number of ways to treat electroless nickel, as are we. There are many different approaches to treating and disposal of spent electroless nickel solutions. This paper will discuss many of the methods that have been used with varying degrees of success in terms of the amount of nickel left after treatment. It is often wise to combine treatments, one following another. Examples include plate-out with palladium salts, plate-out with steel wool, borohydride induced plate-out, nickel dust plate-out, Precipitation of metals using various precipitants, ion exchange, electrowinning, reverse osmosis and electrodialysis. Which one should I use? How do they compare? Some of the pros and cons of each process will be noted.