Deep Purification of Zinc Ammoniacal Leaching Solution by Cementation with Zinc Dust

Deep purification of zinc ammoniacal leaching solution by cementation using zinc dust was studied.The effects of relative amount of metallic impurities,dosage of zinc dust,purification time,temperature,pH value and total ammonia concentration in the solution on the purification of the solution were investigated.The results indicate that total ammonia concentration in the solution had no effect on the purification,but relative amount of metallic impurities,dosage of zinc dust,purification time,temperature and pH value of the solution were the main factors influencing the purification.Keeping appropriate molar ratio of copper to cadmium or nickel to cadmium was beneficial to the cementation of cadmium.Nevertheless,the presence of cobalt went against the cementation of cadmium and cobalt.All metallic impurities could be decreased to acceptable levels under the optimized conditions of 2 g/L of zinc dust dosage,1 h of purification time,35℃,pH value 9.03 of zinc ammoniacal leaching solution.The deeply purified zinc ammoniacal solution obtained by one-stage purification meets the requirements of zinc electrowinning.

Cathodic process of nickel electrodeposition from ammonia-ammonium chloride solutions

Mechanism of cathodic process on nickel electrodeposition from ammonia-ammonium chloride solutions was studied by Tafel polarization curves,linear sweep voltammetry(LSV),cyclic voltammograms(CV)and chronopotentiometry(CE)technologies.In the electrolyte with 1.0 mol·L^(-1) NiCl_(2)·6H_(2)O,4.0 mol·L^(-1) NH_(3)·H_(2)O and2.5 mol·L^(-1) NH4Cl,nickel ion mainly complexed with ammonia and almost no free nickel ion could be found.It is confirmed that the dominant form of nickel ammonia complex ion in the system is Ni(NH_(3))_(4)^(2+)by measuring the equilibrium potential of the electrode at various concentrations of ammonia.The species of Ni(NH_(3))42+turns into Ni(NH_(3))_(2)^(2+)during pre-chemical reaction step before discharging reduction reaction.Then,Ni(NH_(3))_(2)^(2+)discharges at the cathodic interface to form metal nickel deposit directly.Nucleation process is involved during nickel electrodeposition according to CV results.The reduction reaction of Ni(NH_(3))_(2)^(2+)is irreversible which is controlled by diffusion step.Other processes are also accompanied during the electrodeposition process,except for the diffusioncontrolled process.