What Is a Nickel Anode?

Nickel electrolysis refers to the process of obtaining pure nickel or metallic nickel from nickel smelting intermediate products by electrochemical metallurgy. The same product in nickel smelting can be crude nickel, nickel sulfide or nickel-containing solution. The process of electrolytic refining using crude nickel or nickel sulfide as the soluble anode is called crude nickel electrolytic refining or nickel sulfide electrolytic refining. The process of electrolytically extracting the nickel deposited by nickel is called zinc electrolytic deposition. The products of electrolytic refining or electrolytic deposition are collectively called electric nickel.

Crude nickel and nickel sulfide are treated

Nickel-containing solutions usually come from the process of high-nickel rhenium selective leaching. The composition of the electrolyte varies with the leaching agent used, and is usually a nickel sulfate or chloride solution. The electrolytic deposition process uses an insoluble anode.

Crude nickel electrolytic refining is a traditional nickel electrolytic process, and nickel sulfide electrolytic refining began to be industrialized in the 1950s. Nickel electrolytic deposition gained industrial application in the 1960s with the development of a selective leaching process for processing high nickel rhenium.

The purity of electric nickel is 99.2% ~ 99.99% or even higher, and its quality is usually evaluated according to its impurity content. There are about 20 impurities in electric nickel with a limited content, mainly cobalt, carbon, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, iron, Copper, etc., China's electric nickel is divided into four grades, the purity of No. 0, No. 1, No. 2 and No. 3 nickel is> 99. %.

Electrowinning of nickel refers to a nickel electrolysis method in which an insoluble anode is used to deposit nickel ions in a nickel sulfate solution or a nickel chloride solution on the cathode of an electrolytic cell under direct current. This method was industrialized in Finland's Outok-umpu Oy in 1960, and China began to use it for industrial production in the 1970s.